


That's Your First Mistake

by jedjubeed



Series: Aberdeen [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam Young (Good Omens) - Freeform, Alcoholism, Childhood, Human AU, Implied Physical Abuse, Implied abuse, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mentions of alcoholism, School, Slow Burn, The Them (Good Omens) - Freeform, highschool, i also really want to keep a post sched, i don't have the heart to write them, implied emotional abuse, ineffable husbands, teenage years, there won't be graphic scenes of that, uhh aziraphale's name is ezra fell because it makes more sense than Aziraphale Fell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-07-20 00:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 54,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedjubeed/pseuds/jedjubeed
Summary: When Crowley was younger, and he got lonely, he thought about all the atoms around him, and all the space between them. Did atoms get lonely? Must do.When Crowley got older, and he got lonely, he knew to pick up the telephone.Alternatively, a human AU which tells the story about how Aziraphale (Ezra Fell) and Crowley met, became friends, and fell in love.





	1. Pale Freckles and Hazel Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in the fandom, and I was inspired by all the wonderful fanfiction I've read for this lovely, lovely fandom. I haven't written in years, so if it's rusty and awkward, you know why. These chapters will likely be a little short! I'm writing completely off the fly, and I don't have a beta reader. I'm going to write until I think that's a good place to leave off, and then I'll post the chapter. I'll probably write a lot of them tonight (07/25/19).
> 
> Please do leave any criticism, thoughts, keysmashes, or ramblings in the comments! Love you!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy with pale freckles, hazel eyes, and flaming hair meets a boy with feathery blond hair and blue eyes.
> 
> They become good friends.

Anthony J. Crowley was, in fact, a person.

Surprisingly enough, he was a human being - and this statement could be quite sarcastic, unless one had a previous impression of him that led them to believe that he was not human. Alas, he was - which meant he was made of flesh (protein), and blood (mostly water), and bones (calcium, he'd suppose), and other squishy bits. This was all physical matter, but as Anthony J. Crowley knew, and had known for quite a while, all physical matter was made out of atoms.

You may be asking yourself: what are atoms made out of?

Crowley wasn’t a quantum physicist. He didn’t fucking know.

All he knew was that all this flesh and blood and bones and squishy bits were made out of atoms, and boy, there were a lot of those! There was also a lot of space in between those atoms, he knew.

Sometimes, when he thought about it too hard, all that space between the atoms made him lonely. Surely, all those atoms would be quite lonely, since there was so much space between them.

Sometimes, when he got lonely, he thought of all those atoms in his skin, and he thought about how there were so many, he could see his hand, and there really mustn't be so much space between them, or else he could see right through his hand!

Or, well, there must be quite a lot of them, if he could see his hand.

When Anthony J. Crowley got older, and he got lonely, he ignored it. _Feeling sorry for yourself won't get you anywhere,_ he could hear. It was usually coupled with a burning in his belly that came along with drinking bitter-tasting liquor.

When Anthony J. Crowley got even older, and he got lonely, his hand usually went for the telephone.

When Anthony J. Crowley was young, he didn't get lonely very much.

-

Children were easy to like. Even if you didn't exactly like children, it was easy to look at a bunch of kids filtering into school, and upon seeing that, it was easy to think back to one's own childhood - a time of carefree love.

Children were easy to be annoyed by, as well. It was easy to look at a mother boarding a long-haul flight with a 14-month infant and thinking _oh, dear God, please don't let that_ thing _cry the whole time._ Even if you wouldn't actually wish harm upon a child, I'd hope, nevertheless the thought still exists. It's just human nature to not want to listen to something the size of a loaf of bread scream with the lung capacity of a vacuum cleaner.

It takes a special kind of person to be able to deal with crowds of them - children, not loaves of bread or vacuum cleaners. Could you imagine a crowd of bread? That's the stuff of nightmares. Poor, poor bakers.

Ms. Lavey was that type of person.

Now, don't let this trip of narration fool you into believing Ms. Lavey is a character of any importance, or that any of this would be told from her perspective. She isn't even a character, she's just a name I thought up, because there needed to be one.

I'm sure she's a perfectly average teacher of young adolescents. She's probably married to a nice young man she met in or out of college, maybe even her highschool sweetheart. She's probably young, hardly 32, with dark brown hair that's shoulder length and curled at the ends. She probably has a dazzling smile, and a warm presence - something young adolescents need. She probably teaches something like History, or English, or Social Studies - and she's probably kind, with a soft voice, that can be raised when it needed to be.

Ms. Lavey is an average woman, even more average than just _normal_ , and she probably is quite boring. You can see why she exists as a cardboard cutout in this tale, right? Right.

She was starting the new school year. She had likely worked there for years - and was probably quite good at all of this.

"Class," she crooned out, in the same way teachers of young adolescents often did, in a nice sweet voice, "we do have a few new students joining us this year! And I'd like to get to know all of you, so let's start with an icebreaker activity."

 _The school year always starts out with an icebreaker activity,_ a student had thought. A student with platinum blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a cute, round face.

Ezra Fell was 12 years old, and he'd been in this school system since he learned how to read. Speaking of, he loved to read. It was his favorite thing to do, he was so good at it, and he really, really liked it.

Teachers said he was "gifted", and he always heard that word. He wondered when he'd gotten those gifts, or what they were! Maybe it was still on the way, and it'd been lost in the mail. He hoped it was cool. Like a sword!

Ezra Fell wasn't completely hopeless, of course, to books. He had other interests that 12 year old boys often did. Like swords, and scraping his knees, and getting into trouble, and playing games with the other kids during recess. He wasn't completely hopeless, no, but he didn't exactly have friends, either.

Sure, he had a few, what kid didn't? Every kid had friends. He had his group that he played with on the playground, and for group projects, but they weren't really... _friends._ He didn't really have sleepovers, and he didn't go to other kids' houses too often. He played with the neighborhood kids during the summer, sometimes, when his mom implored him to get out of the house.

He was getting a little old for that, these days, and sometimes just decided to ride around the neighborhood on his bike. Sometimes he'd go into town, if he asked his mom really nice, and she said yes. It wasn't a very big town, anyway. There were plenty of shops, and a river that cut through town, and a library. That was Ezra's favorite spot. He could spend all day at the library.

The library, of course, was not an uncommon place for 12 year olds. It was a really nice library, after all - with a section for kids, and for teens, and a downstairs for various events, and an upstairs for adults. The upstairs had rooms you could rent, and balconies you could go out on, and kids usually liked to go onto the balcony, since you could be loud. Ezra liked sitting upstairs in those cozy chairs where it was quiet so he could read books.

His favorite part of the library was that he could stay for a long time, and read books, and he didn't have to buy them! He figured whoever invented libraries really liked having books, so he wouldn't want to take them away forever.

He understood, reverently, as a young boy. He had his own bookshelf full of his own books (and all his older siblings' books, but they didn't have a whole lot), and he would hate to part with any of them. Ezra was very mature from a young age, in understanding that he'd have hell trying to give away any of his books.

Anyway, there was a topic at hand here.

Right, icebreaker activities.

Short of the few new kids they had every year (and usually it was just one or two), there was really no need to have icebreaker activities, Ezra thought. He thought he was very mature in having an opinion like this.

All the kids knew each other already, he thought. Ezra knew most of these kids' name, and what they were gonna say _(going to, he could hear his mother correct)_ , so there was no need! At the mere mention of an icebreaker activity he rested his chin down in his palm, looking around the room for those new kids Ms. Lavey was talking about.

He could see a girl with dark blonde hair, already talking with another girl next to her. She was pretty, he thought. She looked nice. He saw a boy with glasses, with dark, almost black hair, who was just... the sort of kid you originally think of when you think "glasses", before realizing that a lot of kids wear glasses. He could probably recite the whole periodic table by the age of 16.

Ezra saw another kid he didn't recognize. He was thin, and tall (Ezra could assume. They were all sitting down, of course), and he was fair in a way that told him that he either didn't tan very well, and just burned, or he didn't really go outside during the summer months.

He stuck out in a way that Ezra could only begin to describe as intentional. He had flaming red hair (not ginger - it was _red._ ), and he wore all black. In the grace of being a 12 year old boy, these clothes happened to be a black jacket, unzipped, a black t-shirt, and dark jeans. It was intentional, alright. He stuck out to Ezra not because of the way he looked, or because Ezra felt any certain type of way about him - this boy stuck out and made himself the center of attention, sitting as far away from people as he could, because _he wanted to stick out._ He wanted the attention.

Ezra wasn't used to kids like that. It wasn't like they had a huge population of punk kids, or kids that wore all black and dyed their hair for attention. It was a small town, and they were all quite sheltered from that kind of thing. Well, he was new for a reason.

"Now, we're going to go around the class - we'll start with Kelsey here. I want you to say your name, and one cool thing you did this summer. Right, Kelsey?"

Ezra decided this would be a good time to start organizing the things in his backpack. He kept an ear on what was happening, so he didn't miss his turn. He noticed they were going through the rows in a way he wasn't expecting, so the boy in the back with the all-black and the red hair actually went before Ezra.

"Uh, I'm Anthony- and, I, uh- well, I caught a snake in the woods, I guess that was cool."

There was nothing remarkable about this. It wasn't terribly remarkable that he'd caught a snake - he was sure everybody had caught a snake - and 12 year olds were bound to trip over their words when speaking in crowds.

 _Anthony._ He'd have to remember that. Eventually, it swung around to Ezra.

"I'm Ezra, and this summer- well, this summer I went with my family and we went to Italy."

Ezra's family was pretty well-off. It wasn't exactly showing off to be talking about a holiday to Italy - the small town had a population of mostly upper-middle class folk. It was a rich town, and a rich school district. That wasn't to say poor people didn't exist. He knew kids that lived in 2 bedroom houses with their parents and siblings, and didn't have too much money, and he knew kids that practically lived in mansions.

Ezra was kind of in the middle of that spectrum. He had older siblings, so he was no stranger to hand-me-downs, but it was out of convenience rather than necessity. He'd shared a bedroom with his older brother up until he went to college. Their house wasn't super huge, but it also wasn't particularly tiny. Ezra had a comfortable life, in terms of finances. Most people were fairly financially comfortable here, enough to hop across the channel and have a holiday in Italy or Germany or France.

At recess, Ezra brought his book outside with him. It was still early September, so it was quite warm outside, and quite nice for playing in. He could sit at one of the picnic benches outside and read his book in the nice weather. Sometimes he preferred to read over playing with the group of kids, and sometimes they played games that Ezra didn't want to play, anyway.

When he sat down, and opened his book to the page he was last on, he could see somebody in his peripheral stalk up in a slouch, and sit down on the opposite side of the bench, on the opposite end. Ezra didn't look up from his book. Sometimes teachers sat down, or other kids with friends - he hoped another kid wouldn't sit down so that they would be loud.

To his luck, nobody else joined the figure in his peripheral. The figure did speak up, though.

"What kind of a name is Ezra? You Jewish or something?" Ezra looked up. The boy sniffed, clearly looking curious about it. It was Anthony, the boy from earlier.

"I'm not Jewish. It's just a name. And for your information, before you ask, it is not a girls name." He'd been teased about it before - about having a girl's name. His mom told him that Ezra was a high priest, and he even had his own book. He quite liked his name.

"Oh, alright," the other boy said. "You didn't look Jewish, anyway. How come you're sitting alone?" The boy - _Anthony_ \- didn't seem to think any of these questions were a little pointed, or personal, judging by his facial expressions. He was talking as if this was the most casual thing in the world.

"Because I wanted to read my book," Ezra countered, "and how come _you're_ sitting alone?" This seemed to amuse Anthony. The corner of his mouth twitched upward, as if Ezra had just told a joke he himself didn't understand.

"I don't know if you've noticed at all, but I'm new. Haven't made any friends yet."

"Oh," Ezra said. Now he felt bad. "Well, do you want to be friends?" Anthony considered it briefly. He slid down on the bench, so instead of sitting away from Ezra, he was across from him.

"Yeah, okay." Now that Anthony was sitting so close, Ezra could see that Anthony had pale freckles, and hazel eyes. "Call me Crowley, though. 'S my last name. I like it more. And don't ever call me Tony."

"Okay, Crowley." Ezra liked the name Crowley, too. It quite fit a boy that wore a black jacket outside in early September, with pale freckles on his pale face, and hazel eyes.


	2. A Worn Bible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy with blue eyes has two older brothers.
> 
> A boy with gold eyes has two older brothers.
> 
> Their lives are very, very different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, the title of this fanfiction was because I let my good friend Kazzy name it, and none of the names she was giving me made sense - but when I looked back to when I first asked her to name it, the first thing she said was "That's your first mistake," and it just made sense.

Ezra was always told, from various sources, that he was a “good kid”.

This, of course, was excusing of anything bad he’d ever done - well, all the things Ezra thought were bad, anyway. Like accidentally stealing a pen from that nice secretary lady at that one place, or re-shelving a book at the Library where it wasn’t supposed to be, or sometimes not paying attention during church.

Church was taken very seriously in the Fell household. Both of Ezra’s parents were devout Christians, and they’d all been raised into God’s message of love.

Ezra’s older siblings were all good Christians as well - they went to church without complaining, they talked adult talk about the Lord, and being religious (things Ezra didn’t get his head around, and he supposed it’d click when he was older), and the like.

Ezra’s dad always said they were “good kids”, and that message always extended to Ezra, seeing as he went to church without complaining, nodded along to adult talk about the Lord, and the like.

He supposed it made sense, really - who else would have made the Earth, and the sun, and all the animals and the nice trees? And humans?

He’d read the Old Testament as reading material a few times by then, because he’d grown up with it, and it was familiar to him, like a worn copy of fables or children’s stories. The thick copy of The Children’s Old Testament was comforting to Ezra - it was worn around the edges, from his father’s hands, reading to him when he was a young kid - and from his brother’s, when Ezra had gotten older and his father was around less and less.

Later on, the wear on the corners were from his own hands, reading the stories over and over, and over and over, and over, and over. He read his favorites first (he really liked Noah and the Ark, thinking about all those animals), ones he didn’t quite care about (giants roaming the Earth was really quite implausible), and he even read ones he didn’t particularly like, when he was very bored (he didn’t think the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were really that bad or sinful). It was a comfort to him.

He’d never stopped, however, to contemplate the message of these stories. To him, they were just stories - yeah, a guy got a big boat and loaded it up with a bunch of animals? Fat chance. He hadn’t stopped to consider the recurring themes of the Lord constantly smiting his children - those He had made in His image - it just didn’t come to his thoughts. It made sense why the Lord didn’t talk to humans like he used to.

Sometimes Ezra wished God would talk to him like He had talked to Abraham. Sometimes Ezra wished he was Abraham, or someone like him - just so he could talk to God. He thought that’d be really quite tidy, actually, and sometimes when he prayed at his bedside before he went to sleep (which he did every night), he prayed to be a mouthpiece of the Lord.

He didn’t consider this to be out of loneliness.

In the Beginning, the Lord really reminded Ezra of his dad. God cared about Adam and Eve, and just wanted to protect them from the serpent.

Ezra’s dad wasn’t home very much any more. Something about business trips, or his job, all he knew was that his dad wasn’t home very much, but he was the one making all the money, so Ezra wasn’t allowed to complain about it. Nobody else complained about it, and Gabriel was just fine doing all the things their dad had done.

Ezra could remember the swift, but not exactly subtle transition from his father to Gabriel. When he was 6 or 7, their dad was away more and more often, but Gabriel was there, so he was the one who read Ezra bedtime stories and prayed on his bed next to him before they went to sleep.

Ezra shared a room with Gabriel for his whole life, but that was fine, because Gabriel mostly hung out with his friends in the basement or out someplace else, so Ezra could sit in bed or at his little writing table and read his books.

The transition wasn’t very subtle because Gabriel wasn’t very old, or very good at being a dad. He was just a little older than Ezra is now, he reminded himself often - _How would you like it to have to take care of your kid brother?_

Ezra supposed that would be a lot of responsibility to have. He supposed Gabriel didn’t exactly have to take over, but Gabriel had once said that he felt like he had to. They didn’t talk about feelings much, but after dinner one night when they were sitting in their room, Ezra asked about it. He supposed he felt a little bad.

Ezra was lucky, though. His mom told him stories about boys like him whose dads weren’t around at all - boys who had never met their dads, or whose dads lived far, far away, or never wanted kids.

He’d never admit to the creeping feeling he got in his throat when his mother told him there were dads out there who never wanted kids. He’d never admit that, sometimes, when he looked at his father, and Ezra knew he looked nothing like his father, and read books all day instead of playing sports, or had to be told to go outside and play instead of making trouble, sometimes he thought his dad never wanted to have _him._

At the ripe old age of 10, Ezra swore to never tell anybody about that, ever, in a million years, however long he lived (because at the age of 10, you’re still immortal). Ezra swore that if he ever had kids, even if they didn’t look like him, or they didn’t like to play sports, he would still want them. Ezra felt a little bad - imagine the responsibility his father had! The man had three kids, and a job. Ezra didn’t know how adults got to be so mature and responsible, but he hoped when he was an adult, and had a job, and kids, he could be responsible like his dad.

His mom also told him stories of boys whose moms weren’t around. He thought these were especially sad, since his mom was always home - she didn’t have a job, she was a “stay at home mom”.

 _My job is to take care of you all,_ she always said while cooking dinner, or reading the paper, or- well, Ezra couldn’t think of much else he’d seen his mom doing. He supposed she was a very simple woman. He thought his mom was really grown-up, too, since she paid all the bills, and cooked dinner for them all, and did all kinds of adult things that Ezra was sure all adults did. He bet she even paid taxes, which is the most adult thing of all.

Ezra thought, since he had a mom, and she didn’t work like his dad, he was a pretty lucky kid. He felt bad for boys who didn’t have moms, or boys whose moms didn’t want them, or boys whose moms lived far away. His mom told him to always be grateful for what he had, because somebody always, always had it worse.

-

And worse they did. Anthony - _Crowley_ \- that was, supposed he was pretty freakin’ lucky by now. He was actually in school now, and had an excuse to be gone from the house for hours a day. Kids who got homeschooled didn’t exactly have a reason to be gallivanting through the streets, you see. He was only in school because of a court order which said he needed to go to public school.

These days, a lot of his daily life and what he did revolved around those stupid court orders. He guessed his old man had it a little worse, since they were all reflected upon the senior Crowley to follow, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still a pain in the ass to little Anthony here.

On the topic of frollicking about town, he was practically off the hook for that, until he graduated. It wasn’t exactly as if his dad knew when school got out, or started, or really cared about any part of it. He didn’t even know if the guy knew where it was. Alas, he was the only guy in the house who owned a car, so it really did rub the varnish on a few of his ploys.

 _The second I turn sixteen,_ Crowley often said to himself, _I’m getting a license, and a car._ He could hardly contain himself. He wasn’t even old enough to be looking at cars, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t save up for one, right?

He always liked the old cars. The vintage ones, from before the 70s and stuff. He thought they looked so cool.

Crowley wasn’t exactly the kind of car guy who knew the make and model of a car just by looking at it, or could rattle them off the top of his head, but he knew a couple of his favorites that he thought were pretty sweet.

When he saved up his money, and could see his box full of cash steadily building up, it made him excited for the day he’d finally be able to buy a car of his own - one he really liked, not an old beater car.

He’d definitely have to buy an old shitty beater car at some point, and that thought disappointed him. His dad had a beater car, and it was falling apart. It was too expensive to fix, or to get a new car, so they just dealt with it. His dad didn’t drive it terribly often, which was part of the reason why it was falling apart. Any car is bound to fall apart when you let young hooligans drive it, and that is simply a fact of the universe.

Hooligans in question, of course, being the perpetual stinging twin aches in Crowley’s bottom. He had two older brothers, neither one as paternal as Gabriel seemed to be, and older. Hardly home, which was a benefit to Crowley, but they made up in the lack of frequency of their heckling in intensity. Hastur and Ligur were absolutely Crowley’s two least favorite people in the whole bloody world.

Crowley liked to have things in a very certain way. His tiny bedroom was orderly, and precise - it was the embodiment of the cutting edge of a particularly sharp knife. His bed was made, everything had a place, and upon setting foot in the room, you wouldn’t expect to find somebody actually lived there - clearly this was just a guest bedroom in reserve. There was hardly anything in it, nothing sitting out of place. There was a desk (with plenty of drawers), a bed, and a closet, which remained firmly shut at all times that he was not getting dressed or doing laundry.

Crowley was a very particular, fussy boy. Hastur and Ligur just really liked to fuck it all up. It wasn’t the petty childish “let me come in and trash your room” game that they were playing - no, this was far subtler, far more menacing and manipulative. Crowley had a room of his own, so the best and first way to fuck with him, obviously, was to invade his privacy. Come in, snoop around - heave a desk drawer ajar, leave the closet door open. Make it obvious you were in nosing around.

This was, Crowley knew, a game that two could play. This was a game that Hastur and Ligur played. Against Crowley.

It was not a game that three could play, to Crowley’s dismay.

-

“First day, huh?”

There were three figures, walking. Two were tall, and thin - one was shorter, a little less thin, though not necessarily stocky, just larger. The smaller figure was clearly smaller due to an age discrepancy, one would think, upon seeing these three figures. Upon inspecting closer, one could see that two of these figures were quite related.

Ezra Fell, Michael Fell, and Uriel Adonai were heading through town, to a neighborhood nestled just barely within the outskirts of town, within walking distance of the schools. The former of the three bore clear resemblance to each other, with the same bright blonde hair and wide shoulders. Uriel was just a friend of Michael’s, a neighbor. They’d known each other since they were very small, and was practically a part of the family by now.

“It was yours, too,” the younger of the trio responded.

“First days for us aren’t as exciting,” Uriel chipped back. Uriel and Michael were the same age, both much older. They were getting ready to graduate, both 17. Sometimes Ezra wondered why he was so much younger than his brothers.

“Well, you do anything fun? Anything exciting?” Gabriel may have taken the role of standing father, but Michael always seemed more involved.

“There was a weird new kid, actually. He wore a jacket outside and told me to call him by his last name. He was nice, though.”

“You shouldn’t call nice kids weird, Ezra.”

“Sorry, Michael. You’d get it if you met him - he was so… odd. Obscure. Not weird. He told me all about how he found so many snakes in his garden, and he’d take them and put them out in the woods, but then he’d just find them again! I told him he should have kept some as a pet, but then he said pets were a lot of work, and he didn’t want it loose in his room. And then he told me about how much he likes plants, and he’d like to keep some, but how he’s not very good at it, and-”

Ezra kept going on about the conversation they’d had during recess, he and Crowley. Michael and Uriel shared a glance with each other, which was of relief, and a little bit of doting happiness.

Ezra didn’t exactly get excited about many people outside his books, so to hear that Ezra had met a strange boy in his class who wore coats outside and saw lots of snakes in his garden and liked plants a whole lot was a relief. He sounded real, at least.

"Well, where does he live? Anywhere close? Maybe you could visit him," Michael mused.

"Oh, I hadn't thought to ask that - I'll ask that tomorrow, then, and then I'll pay him a visit. You think mom would like to meet him? I think she'd want to, since he's so strange."

Ezra went to sleep that night, after praying at his bedside. He prayed that the school year would be good, and fun, and he prayed that it wouldn't rain too often, or get too cold during the winter. He prayed that this new boy really wanted to be his friend.

At night, he could only curiously think about the strange boy - Crowley. He was quite a funny boy. He wondered where Crowley had come from - maybe he'd lived in London before this, and that's where he was from. Ezra thought he might like to show him around the town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you want to see in the chapters to come down in the comments! I would LOVE to hear some suggestions from you all! Give me starters, ideas, anything!


	3. Trust Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has nowhere else to go. Ezra lets him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the wise words of Dr. Phil, you don't know what you don't know.

_Tap, tap._

Ezra wasn’t yet accustomed to dealing with the ambient noises of a quiet house at night. Correction: he wasn’t used to dealing with them alone. He knew the house made noises when the wind blew too hard, or if it rained a lot, or if it got too cold, but he’d never been alone to deal with these noises before.

_Tap, tap, tap!_

There was that sharp sound again. It sounded like it was coming from his window, or maybe the siding of the house just behind his head.

The mere presence of such a persistent (and purposeful) noise had Ezra frozen under the covers of his twin-sized bed, laying on his left side so that he was faced away from the window. The double panes of glass in question were just behind him, however- and in his young imagination, whatever was tapping on Ezra’s window could see him.

Surely, this was just a curious bird.

His room was on the second story in the corner of the house, said window overlooking the black shingles of the roof tiles above their two-car garage, and the street beyond. Ezra hadn’t had a screen in that window for years, perhaps, and one could easily access the roof from Ezra’s bedroom.

The garage roof inclined in towards the outside wall of his bedroom, creating a gutter space within arm’s reach from the window, and just so happened to also create a roof space that one could occupy without fear of falling off.

On a few occasions where it had been especially nice outside, Ezra found himself on this roof space with a nice book, until his mother had caught him and told him to never go out onto the roof again lest he fall off. It made sense to him, so he stopped.

_Tap, tap. Taptap._

He hadn’t been out on the roof in quite a while, but he still hadn’t bothered to replace the screen. The most he’d ever seen up there was a little squirrel, a few days prior, and it ran off when Ezra tapped at the window. Perhaps the squirrel was seeking vengeance for the fright he’d given it, tapping back at him!

 _How silly, to be afraid of a squirrel,_ he thought.

-

By early November of that year, Crowley and Ezra were steadfast friends.

Crowley had met some other children in the class, of course - ones Ezra wouldn’t get along with. They were the kids that also wore black, and rode their bikes to the train tracks to play with the railroad spikes, and sometimes rode skateboards through town. One of them rode skateboards, at least - Ezra thought the rest only pretended they knew how.

Ezra knew Crowley didn’t know how (and watching him try one time was quite the sight), but you could go much faster on a bike, so it was okay.

When Crowley wasn’t out playing with railroad spikes or jumping off the bridge into the river, he was always by Ezra’s side, ready to tug the boy into causing mischief fit for a young adolescent boy. They would go to the library and sit on the balcony so they could be loud, and they would go to the park and sit by the pond.

Ezra always tried to feed the ducks whatever it was he had left over from lunch that day, be it bread, or crackers, or chip crumbs - and Crowley would always throw little sticks at them (well, near them - he’d never hit a duck, and let out a little ‘oops’ every time a stick got too close to one of them). It scared them, and they’d flap their little wings and quack angrily as they sped away, and Crowley would laugh.

He was such a weird kid.

Weirder still, he never seemed to be at his own home, and a few times Ezra wondered if his parents were ever worried.

By late November, when a thin layer of snow coated the ground and it was always cold out, Crowley stayed for dinner more often than not.

Ezra’s mother, for some reason, never seemed bothered by it ( _It’s like having Gabriel here again,_ she’d say, _and you two seem to be good friends_ ). She was happy that Ezra had a friend to play outside with instead of sitting in their garden, nose shoved in a book.

Crowley, on the other hand, said he didn’t like to read books, and Ezra thought this was absolutely preposterous.

“They’re just so boring,” Crowley once said, laying on the carpet of Ezra’s bedroom.

Ezra sat across from him, legs out with his hands behind him to hold himself up.

“But you always like the stories,” Ezra pointed out, “you just don’t like to read them yourself.”

“Yeah! It takes too much time!” Crowley threw his hands up, and let them fall back to the floor beside himself. “You’re just better at telling the stories than any shabby writer.”

“I just tell them how they’re written,” he defended.

He didn’t think he was a very good storyteller, having always lost focus and made the stories way longer than they needed to be. That’s what Michael said, at least.

“Those writers are so full of themselves, and the books are so boring. I just wish I had somebody to read the books for me.”

The lilt in Crowley’s tone was enough to openly suggest a ploy, and it was up to Ezra now to accept, probably begrudgingly, or to ignore Crowley.

Crowley raised his head to look at the other boy, a familiar spark of mischief and pleading in his eyes. It was up to Ezra to take that spark, foster it, set it ablaze - and he came to this realization very quickly.

“I am _not_ going to do your homework for you,” he finally said, looking away so that he didn’t have to see the spark in Crowley’s hazel eyes flicker out and die. _That only works when I do it,_ Ezra thought.

Briefly, Crowley looked a tad disappointed, but in the way that he knew Ezra was never going to accept.

“Alright, alright, let me die, I see how it is.”

Crowley dropped his head again dramatically, probably playing dead, but it was all in jest - Ezra decided he didn’t need to respond if Crowley wasn’t actually all that torn up about it.

There was a pause, which was far heavier than it needed to be (a pause in which both boys could feel the weight of, but only one understood the gravity of), Crowley spoke up again with a different conversational topic.

“Hey, ‘s your mom going to care if I spend the night?”

-

_Tap! Tap! Tap!_

It wasn’t snowing outside, or windy, or even cloudy. It was early on a clear December night, and we return to Ezra being paranoid over what he thinks is a squirrel tapping at his window.

Ezra, however, was quite positive that this wasn’t just a squirrel. It was obviously a monster of some sort, wanting to take him away and eat him, or… something. He was too old for that train of thought. 

Usually in a situation like this, Gabriel would be asleep across the room from him, but it lay empty on that night. It was still there, the sheets still tucked in and the pillows fluffed, since Gabriel was going to return for the holiday. These days, however, Crowley was usually the one occupying the bed whenever he slept over.

Ezra could safely say with all of this information that he hadn’t gotten used to having the room all to himself every night. He hadn’t even gotten around to sleeping by the time the tapping presented itself at his window, it was far too early - perhaps 10. Did monsters come out before midnight? How did they know when to come out when the moon was hidden?

If it was a squirrel, Ezra thought, he’d have to scare it off. He might even need a stick in case he opened the window and it jumped at his face.

It was only a few brief moments for all this to go through Ezra’s head, and he steeled his nerves against whatever was waiting at his window for him, and turned his head.

**_"Crowley?!”_ **

Safe to say, it wasn’t a squirrel _or_ a monster.

The boy in question drew his coat around his torso and offered a wave in acknowledgement. Oh, gosh, he was probably freezing - probably annoyed at the wait. Ezra scrambled out of bed so he could open up the window and let him in, which just got snow all over the foot of his bed.

He didn’t notice that as much as he was wondering what in the _great holy Dickens Crowley was doing at his bedroom window!_

“Crowley, what are you doing here?” Ezra was whisper-yelling so he didn’t wake anybody else up in the house.

The last thing he wanted to do was get caught with his window open, snow tracked in, and Crowley standing there.

“Was just in the neighborhood, figured I’d drop in.”

Crowley’s face was red from the cold, and he was breathing as if he’d been running, or maybe climbing up the side of the house to get to the window. 

“Crowley,” Ezra tested, “nobody in their right mind would do this!”

“Calm _down_ , would you? I just-” He’d been talking nonchalantly, as if it was 4 in the afternoon and he really had been in the neighborhood and just decided to pop in. “I just didn’t have anywhere else to go.” The nonchalance of his statement revealed more than it could have if it was spoken with a sincere tone.

There was a beat, a heavy pause - heavy enough that both boys felt it, a pause that one boy understood the gravity of, and one that the other boy desperately wanted to understand.

All that Ezra understood was that he knew nothing. He had his suspicions, he’d had suspicions for a while, but he had to accept that _he didn’t know what he didn’t know_. Looking back on it from years in the future, he thought he could have asked about it, why Crowley didn’t have anywhere to go - but hindsight is 20/20.

“Okay, well…” Ezra took a moment to take in everything that was happening. He shut the window, looked outside, and then went to dig through his closet. “I might have something you can wear to bed. If- if you want.” He pulled out a shirt and some sleep pants. “They might not fit too well.”

He could feel an easing of tension in the room. Relief that the pause went unanswered, and unquestioned. Perhaps it was an exercise of trust. Ezra let Crowley change his clothes in the corner of the room, and they both had a little giggle about how they were a little short.

They didn’t talk much that night, not like they usually did.

Ezra didn’t sleep much. He knew Crowley didn’t, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any ideas for what you want to see in the future of this fic, please leave a comment!


	4. Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's easy to create bad habits, Crowley finds.
> 
> Sometimes faster is not better, Ezra finds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cute chapter before we pick things up.

The two boys didn’t discuss that night Crowley spent at Ezra’s house, unannounced.

The next morning was a school day, and Crowley got up earlier than Ezra so he could change sneak back out the front door, wanting to avoid falling off the roof. He got his things for school, and then met up with the Ezra in front of their school.

They didn’t acknowledge anything that’d happened, even though Ezra desperately wanted to. The night after, at his bedside, Ezra prayed for his friend, and he prayed it was an isolated incident.

Two days after Crowley showed up at his window, and the day after Ezra prayed for him before he went to bed, Ezra decided he was too curious to bite his tongue on a topic Crowley was quiet (but not obstinate) on. When recess was over, and they all lined up at the door to be let back inside, Ezra and Crowley stood side by side.

“So where are you from?” Ezra asked, casually.

“What?”

“You know. Where’d you move in from? You were new this year. I just didn’t ask,” Ezra added on. An afterthought.

“Oh, I’ve been here for a year. I was homeschooled,” Crowley responded.

It was casual, nothing near an admittance - Crowley knew lots of kids had been homeschooled for maybe a few years.

“Really? I’ve never been homeschooled. I bet your parents are smart, then, if they can teach you all those things by themselves.” Crowley sniffed in response to Ezra’s musings, and shrugged.

“Yeah, something like that,” he finally added.

Ezra hadn’t stopped to consider that Crowley had never mentioned a mother. He did, however, consider the fact that he’d never even been to Crowley’s house since they met (since he was thinking about Crowley’s home and all).

He’d heard a few excuses from the boy as to why not (“there are monsters in the basement”, “my dad is weird and you wouldn’t like him”, “my house is too small to play games”, and “my brothers are a pain in the ass”), all which made sense to Ezra. He knew which neighborhood Crowley lived in, and he knew the street he lived on, but Ezra never knew which house was his.

He never thought to ask, since Crowley’s brothers sounded mean, and his dad sounded weird, and his house sounded small.

-

The heat collecting in the pit of Crowley’s abdomen was comforting. It felt like it was building up, threatening to singe his tongue, the back of his throat - maybe he could breathe fire if he tried to. He didn’t try.

As he lifted the glass to his lips again, he could feel the fire in his belly numbing out, to a steady awareness that he had of his esophagus due to the brazen path the liquor had burned into his bloodstream, where it rested and pulsed and made him woozy.

Crowley was 10 the first time he tried liquor, but he was 14 when he first got drunk.

In his defense, his father seemed to like it plenty - more worried about finding what he was looking for in the bottom of a bottle rather than anywhere else. Hastur and Ligur drank, too. Not to excess, not to live, but they seemed to have fun when they did it.

Crowley knew he wasn’t allowed to do so, not really, since he was still far too young. He did it anyway, alone in his house, sitting in his bedroom late one Friday night.

He’d pilfered the bottle of cheap whiskey from his dad’s superfluous and ever-changing liquor cabinet, knowing the Rapture was due sooner than that man ever noticing anything in the house.

He made sure to lock his bedroom door, just in case, before he poured out some whiskey into a coffee mug he’d taken with him. It wasn’t like he’d never tasted alcohol before, he wasn’t exactly a stranger to it, but something about the mindset of “we’re actually doing this” was enough to have the boy recoil a bit at the sudden rush of bitter-tasting liquid flooding his senses. It made him cough a bit, but he managed to get it down.

Briefly, he wondered why anybody would _ever_ want to drink that. It tasted like what lighter fluid smelled like, and it made the inside of his mouth feel dirty - like the inside of a bar with the smell of spilled alcohol and cheap cigarettes (he had a hell of a time stomaching tequila at a later date with that very same thought).

After a few larger sips, drinking a little bit of water to wash his mouth out, some more tentative sipping, and time, did he understand why anybody would seek the taste of lighter fluid.

His head felt funny, like he was floating in space, and standing up proved to be one of the weirdest experiences he’d ever felt. Truly, the effects of inebriation are of the hardest effects to describe to somebody who has never felt them, and now Crowley understood why that was. He thought it was _cool._

Halfway through his blurred night, he realized Ezra probably wouldn’t like it much if he openly admitted to what he’d been doing that night. Crowley knew the boy would already be in bed by then, and he had nobody else to bug or anything else to do so late at night.

Decidedly, he stashed the rest of the bottle of booze away in one of his drawers, dumped whatever was left in the mug, and went to bed. He and Ezra had agreed to go to the park the next day, and Crowley was supposed to meet him there at 10.

-

Luckily, the metabolism of young teenage boys proves to be quick and ruthless. Crowley woke up on Saturday morning, a bit later than usual, with nothing more than a dry mouth and a spinning head that a little bit of cold water fixed right away.

“Crowley!” It wasn’t often Ezra was the one waiting for him. Sure, it happened, but it wasn’t something that happened regularly, out of place enough that an explanation might be in order, if there was one to give.

“Hey, Ezra. Woke up late this morning.” It was late spring - the school year was going to let out soon. The weather had been especially nice the past few weeks, and nice enough so that the two boys could start to romp around town together after a long winter.

Crowley let his bike fall to the grass, completely ignoring the kickstand in lieu of convenience. He hopped up to the table the other boy was sitting at, lifting the cover of his book up so he could see it. _The Great Divorce_ by C. S Lewis. He sounded like a guy with a lot of money and a lot of ego.

He let the cover drop back down onto the wooden table, resting his chin in his hands.

“You’re not late.” After Crowley so rudely fiddled around with the book to glimpse at the cover (without even asking!), Ezra simply decided to mark the page, close it, and set it aside.

“Oh, good. On my way in, I saw some moving vans outside a house in your neighborhood. You getting some new neighbors? Have you met them yet?”

“On Lawrence? It’s some old woman, my mom went and talked to her. She didn’t say anything about it when she came home, so the new woman’s probably mean, or atheist.”

“Has this old woman got a name, or is she too busy doing blasphemy and worshiping the devil for that?”

“Crowley- she probably doesn’t _worship the devil._ Nobody actually does that.”

Crowley returned him with a cocked brow, one that suggested that he knew people did that, and he knew how to prove it, too.

“Okay, okay- maybe she does worship the devil. If she does, I’ll introduce you two, and you can have tea with her on whatever day devil worshipers have tea together.”

“Sundays, obviously,” Crowley mentioned

“Pardon?”

“Sundays. The day devil worshipers have tea. In fact, I’ve got plans for tomorrow, don’t let me forget-” He could feel Ezra shoving him in the shoulder (in good nature), which sent him to laugh at it. “What, is that _blasphemy?_ ”

“I’m pretty sure it is! Don’t joke about that kind of thing. Even if you don’t believe in it doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

“What are you, an angel of the lord? I bet he sent you down here to convert me.”

It was a crack he probably wouldn’t have taken any other day. His head still felt funny, even though he was able to operate his bike just fine, so he likely wasn’t still drunk.

“Come on, Crowley, that’s not how it works,” They could both tell the conversation wasn’t serious, and it didn’t hold any weight. “You can’t just convert heretics.”

“Oh, come on, _angel!_ We both knew I wasn’t going to end up at the pearly gates.” They both laughed at their little joke.

Crowley thought he might use the nickname more often, _angel,_ since it was so fitting. Bible boy with bright blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes (isn’t alliteration one of God’s greatest creations), who constantly wore all white and bright colors. Crowley thought Ezra looked like an angel.

He was 14 when this thought first entered his mind, and for decades, it would never leave his mind.

The day went as days with the boys usually went. Crowley suggested they do dangerous stuff, like bike on the train tracks, or jump off the bridge into the river, but they were met with disapproval, as always. Crowley knew Ezra wasn’t allowed on the tracks, and he knew the river was still too cold for swimming, but that didn’t stop him from suggesting it all the same.

Ezra’s suggestions were too mild, like going to the library, and stuff like that, so they settled on biking really fast down the hill outside of town over and over and seeing who could go the fastest.

One may expect that to be Ezra, with the clearly more expensive (and much newer) bike, but he had something Crowley didn’t that left him trailing far behind without any mercy, only to watch as Crowley flew down the hill, laughing like a maniac as the wind swept his hair back: hill brakes.

Ezra cursed hill brakes. He didn’t know how to take them off, and Crowley didn’t either, admitting that his older brothers were the ones to fix his bike up for him, years ago.

“We’ll figure it out eventually,” Ezra said as they tipped his bike back up, “maybe my dad knows how.” Ezra saw his dad less these days than he had when he was 12.

It’s funny how it worked out for him - as he got older, he understood less and less why his dad was never home. It’s not like it was responsibility, since Gabriel and Michael had moved out already and the only people left in the house were Ezra, and his mother, and sometimes Crowley.

Crowley made it bearable, since with him around, there was always something to do.

Ezra realized he’d been lost in thought around the same time he felt the handlebars of his bike jerk under his hands, and then felt the impact of concrete against his left side.

It didn’t hurt, not immediately, and proved to only knock the air out of his lungs as he hit the ground with a thud, and then a little bit of a skid. He had rolled over after the initial impact, landing in the grass by the sidewalk, flat on his back with his arms splayed out to either side of himself.

He was going too fast for the impact not to do some damage, and once he took his place of resting in the grass (which wasn't the most restful thing he'd ever done), then it really started to hurt. He could feel the concrete burn he'd gotten on his left arm, which no doubt stretched from his shoulder to his hand, and he could feel a bruise forming where he'd hit his head and torso on the pavement.

He seemed to be okay past that, but it sure did hurt.

He was dazed for a moment, focusing on regaining his breath: draw in for 5 seconds, hold it, release for 7. Repeat as necessary.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Crowley's face come into focus, red from running up the hill and his hair a mess from being swept in every which direction by the wind.

"You alright, angel? That was a bit of a nasty fall, and I'm afraid your mum would send me to boot camp if I came up and told her you'd broken an arm."

There was humor in his voice. It was superficial (but not fake), and existed only as a veil to cover up his concern. Ezra recognized this.

"Oh, I'm alright-" He raised his left arm, and grumbled a bit about it when he saw the scrape.

"Euch. Your mom's gonna freak out, isn't she? No way to hide that from her."

"She is not going to 'freak out', she's a sensible woman- oh, that hurts."

Ezra cringed a bit as he sat up, satisfied in the fact that he could breathe easily now without feeling like he was about to drown.

"Yes, yes, a sensible woman who cares about her sons and only wants the best for them. Wait here, I've got water in my bag," Crowley said before he disappeared.

He saw Crowley stand up, and start to jog back down the hill to where he'd abandoned his bike when he heard Ezra fall. Bike collisions were not the quietest things in the world, and Crowley could tell when he heard the initial noises that something was going to happen.

It wasn't much longer until he pedaled himself back up to where Ezra was still sitting, all but tossing his bike to the ground so he could dig a plastic water bottle out of his bag.

"Water? I didn't hit my head that hard, I'm not about to pass out. I'm alright," Ezra said.

"No- it's for your arm, dummy, here." Crowley withdrew the water from where he was offering it out, taking a moment to unscrew the cap.

The bottle was mostly full, so Crowley had no grievances about gently taking Ezra's hand to start pouring the water over the scrape. It wasn't so bad once he washed all the blood and grime away from it, but still nothing you could hide from a mother's knowing gaze.

"Ow- Crowley, that stings!" Ezra yelled, flinching back.

"Well geez, Ezra, would you rather your arm got all infected and gross and then the doctors have to cut it off? I'm literally saving your life right now. You know if a cut gets infected, it can get into your blood, and then you get sick and die?"

"I highly doubt they'll _cut my arm off,_ and you're totally making that up."

"I'm not making it up, it's called septic, and my brother told me about it."

"That's not what septic means, your brother lied to you."

"Does that mean he's going to Hell for lying?" Crowley looked a little smug, as if he knew what was coming next, but was keeping it from everybody else.

Crowley would be good at chess, Ezra thought. He always planned two steps ahead, and when he didn't, he always made it seem as if he did.

"I think- probably? Why do you think so hard about going to Hell?"

"Aw, come on, angel. You were supposed to say 'yes', and then I'd joke about it being a family reunion! You're no fun."

Crowley used his jacket from inside his bag to pat everything dry. It probably hurt like a bitch, Crowley thought, and he felt a little bad. At least he was okay.

"If you were going any faster you could have broken your neck," Crowley said.

"Don't say things like that, it'll come true!" Ezra shoved Crowley's shoulder a bit, gently, with a grin on his now-smudged face.

"Not my fault! Maybe you should keep those hill brakes on after all, and leave the 'speed demon'ing to the experts."

"You're hardly an expert at anything, Crowley," Ezra added as he stood up, brushing all his clothes off and righting them.

"Just as I was going to ask if you wanted to ride my bike down the hill. Tut tut, angel."

"Your bike goes too fast for me, Crowley."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any ideas for what you want to see in the future of this fic, please leave a comment!


	5. One, Two, Three, Shout!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley finds the feeling he'd been searching for his entire life. He found uninterrupted peace, untarnished quiet, and he found stillness. He found nothing,
> 
> and it was everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first pasted this all into the text box, it came out as one huge paragraph with no line breaks, and it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen.

In the practice he'd adopted that night before Ezra fell off his bike: sometimes, on the weekends, Crowley drank.

He didn't do it often by any stretch of the imagination - it only happened once every couple of months, alone in his room, in the dead of night. By the time he turned 15 in autumn of the next school year, some of the kids he hung out with that didn't really talk to Ezra often were inviting Crowley to parties, asking him if he wanted to come over on the weekends late at night so they could get drunk and have fun.

Who was he to turn them down? These were his friends. Who would miss him, anyway? Not to say that nobody at all would miss him late on a Friday or Saturday night, but nobody under his roof surely would, and he was careful to keep all existing obligations with Ezra.

On the topic of Ezra, it wasn't hard for Crowley to pick up on the other boy's lack of enthusiasm on his habits. Ezra made it known that he wasn't approving of it, after all, there were plenty of things anybody could do that didn't involve alcohol, or drugs, and was just nice clean fun. 

"Oh, come on, angel, it's just a party! Plenty of kids go to parties all the time." 

"Yes, but- well, with the people you're going out with- I worry, Crowley. I just think there are better things to be doing."

They were both sitting in Ezra's room. Crowley spent a lot of time over at that house, eating dinner and spending the night and hanging out.

He could recall once or twice, when Ezra's mother had given him a look and waited until her son left the room, and then asked

_Anthony, is everything alright at home?_

And then Crowley would respond,

_All due respect, Mrs. Fell, but I'd like to think this is my home._

It seemed to clear up any questions she had about the matter at hand, she never asked again, and neither of them mentioned it to Ezra or anybody else after that. It was a little over a year ago, and Crowley liked to think she was a little bit nicer to him ever since. 

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me, you know I'm not stupid. I don't drink and bike." He dropped a wink at the end of his sentence, but his words held the weight of experience. It only had to happen once or twice that he got absolutely knackered and tried to bike over to Ezra's house, upon the assumption that the night was still young.

The first time, he ended up in the flowerbed by the front sidewalk before he was able to pick himself up and stumble to the front door. His bike was left in the plants until the morning after, of which Crowley walked it back home, not wanting to make the same mistake.

The second time, he almost fell down in the street, stumbled a bit, and ended up (for lack of a better term) busting his balls on the bike seat before he made it to the sidewalk. That was the worst hangover he'd ever had.

"Yes, Crowley, I'm talking about the party. You never know what they'll have there! What if there's-"

"Drugs?"

"Yes!"

"Angel, I'm offended at you, thinking I'm stupid enough to walk into a party unprepared to do drugs. I simply haven't gotten myself ready for that kind of a position."

" _Anthony._ "

Uh oh. That meant Ezra was being serious.

"What? Every party has at least a little bit of drugs." 

"Crowley, if somebody calls the police, and you get caught with drugs, you're going to be in more trouble than you can get yourself out of!"

"Angel, listen, if you go to a party without expecting it to get a shakedown, you're not ready to go to a party. Won't be my first time running from the police."

"I know that, but that doesn't mean I have to like it! Just…" He paused, and the silence was heavier with concern than his own words. When he spoke again, it was quieter, more pointed. He softened. "Just be careful, won't you? Promise me."

Crowley looked over to meet Ezra's eyes, noting how serious he'd become. Crowley, contrary to popular belief, could take things serious if he so needed to (or if Ezra wanted him to).

"Yes, fine, I'll be careful. I promise." It didn't take him terribly long to fold, with the way Ezra was looking at him. There was a spark in his big blue eyes, and they set ablaze when Crowley accepted. Aziraphale smiled, and clapped his hands together.

"Well, I do hope you'll have fun. And be sure not to drink too much, or you'll regret it in the morning, like the last time you went out all night."

It was a generally accepted fact that whenever Crowley was out until the sun rose again, he wouldn’t come knocking at Ezra’s door at 4 in the morning to try and come crash. He liked to think he had better manners than that (and for the most part tried not to get sloppy drunk around the other boy), and instead went back to his own home for the night (morning) to sleep it off.

It was the least he could do to spare waking either Ezra or his mother at some ungodly hour.

He walked to the party, as he usually did if the house was close. To Crowley’s luck, the house was within Ezra's own neighborhood, on the far edge near the main road, and it took him all of five minutes before he was able to push open the front door (which was cracked open for ease of coming and going) and enter. 

Crowley didn’t even know the kid who was throwing the party. Crowley knew his name was Elliot, or something, and his parents would be gone until Tuesday, so what better way to celebrate than to throw a raving party in a neighborhood where nobody would call the cops? Their small town was never very exciting, and Crowley could bargain that nothing would ever happen had it not been for the population of troublemaking teens.

“Crowley!” He heard it from somewhere to the right of where he was standing in the entrance of the living room.

He’d left the front door wide open, half because it was warm enough and half because he couldn’t be bothered to close it.

Moments after he heard the voice, he saw Dagon squeezing herself out to meet him at the entrance, two plastic cups in her hands. One of them was offered out to Crowley, and he took it.

“How long have you been here?” Crowley asked over the music, taking a swig of the drink to see what it was. Beer, and cheap stuff, at that. He could stomach it.

“I helped set up, idiot.” Dagon took the sleeve of Crowley’s leather jacket (it was fake, but nobody knew that besides Ezra), dragging him in through the initial crowd and into the party.

Dagon had chatted Crowley up a few days after the start of school, years back. She saw Crowley hanging around the bookish bible boy, and decided to “rescue him” (as she often said) - and thus was the beginning of Crowley having a crowd of kids to cause trouble with.

Other kids in this group included Levi and Lucy, the undeniable leaders, and Matt, who wasn't really around much. Crowley hadn't exactly devoted himself to the group hierarchy, and existed on a mainly transient level. He was friends with them, they were friends with him, but they understood that he had other obligations (mainly the bookish bible boy).

"Helped set up? So _that's_ why the drink table is all the way back here."

"The closer to the door it is, the easier it is for cops to find it," Dagon replied in her own defense.

"You're an idiot," Crowley concluded, taking back the rest of his drink with a few swift gulps. 

Much of the early night was spent in one of the back rooms, playing a roiling game of cards with a big group of people, some Crowley hadn't met. It mattered less who they were as everybody in the circle got more drunk, and it mattered even less since a lot of kids were leaving between hands and some joined in.

It was a forever-changing group, and eventually Crowley decided to get up and get some air.

He felt too drunk, more drunk than he had been before - a natural consequence of losing track of the time and number of beers one has consumed.

He walked outside where plenty of people were milling about, and sat himself down on an unoccupied chair on the patio. The whole garden felt like it was spinning, and it only got worse when he closed his eyes and lay his head back. Slowly but surely, the spinning seemed to resolve itself until it was at least partially bearable. He didn't pay attention to how long he sat like that, but it must have been a while - long enough for him to hear footsteps and feel a presence beside him.

Upon opening his eyes, he saw Dagon's face above him.

"Feelin' okay, hot stuff?"

"I'm feelin' something," he slurred in response.

"Come on, get up. You need some water, I don't need you passing out here."

Dagon took Crowley by the arm to haul him up, but let go once he was standing. The sudden lack of support almost sent him stumbling over himself, but he had the sense to catch himself before he fell.

He followed Dagon back into the house, gracefully accepting the bottle of water that was shoved into his hands. He drank it slowly, figuring if he chugged it, he might throw up. He wasn’t even thirsty.

The water helped him clear his head out a little bit, and he could see more clearly without the room spinning and warping around. Dagon had disappeared into the crowd once again, to greener pastures, and people that were a little less drunk. Crowley certainly felt pretty drunk. 

“Crowley!” Oh, great.

“Fancy seeing you here.” 

“Always a pleasure,” The boy in question. He was older than Crowley, to be turning 17 in a few months, and dashingly handsome. Levi. Crowley didn’t dislike him, but his presence got a little overbearing one-on-one, and Crowley was a hair too drunk to be dealing with it.

“Hey, James is setting up the beer pong table in the basement. He’s playing with Justin, obviously, but I need a partner, and you’ve got good aim,” Levi offered.

Crowley didn’t think he’d have very good aim like this. On one hand, walking in a straight line served to be a task more fit for an Olympic athlete. On the other, he was leaning up against the kitchen counter with a bottle of water in his hand - and he probably looked pretty sober.

He decided not to dash any dreams, and to accept with a little shrug. 

The stairs down to the basement felt like falling to his death. He didn’t actually trip, but he felt like if he gripped the railing with anything less than white knuckles he’d surely slip and die.

Once he was standing on the end of a ping-pong table with a sea of cheap alcohol between him and two other teenage boys, he knew his night was essentially over.

The objective of beer pong is to, first of all, have good aim. When sober, Crowley’s aim was fine - better than a lot of other people he’d played beer pong with - so this part was easy.

The second part is to stay as sober as possible by having good aim. Getting drunk worsens your aim, which only gets you more drunk. Beer pong is essentially a game birthed directly from the Devil, and usually dissolves into drunkenly throwing ping pong balls around (unless somebody is either very, very bad at it, or very, very good).

This objective, for Crowley, was already crushed. He was already drunk, and his aim was already bad. It seemed every other turn he was chugging down a red plastic cup full of watered-down beer, and it seemed as if all of his turns and movements and words were all blurring together into one continuous streak of existence. The water in the beer really wasn’t helping him.

Before he knew it, he was back on that deck chair he was sitting in earlier. If he really racked his brain, he could recall hazy memories of the game ending, and he could remember stumbling up the stairs and staggering outside.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, outside, for the second time that night. The only few folks outside were some guy asleep on another piece of patio furniture with a girl, also asleep, and somebody who seemed to be the friend of said girl who was trying to pull her up.

She gave up, and sat down on a chair, and said something to Crowley. Shit, he was staring. He looked away, and shrugged. She seemed to understand that he was uninterested in talking, or incapable.

Crowley looked down, and found a half-finished cup of beer in his hand, balanced on his leg. He didn’t remember bringing that up, and he certainly didn’t notice it.

_Bottoms up,_ he thought. _No use in wasting perfectly good beer._

This was, of course, the last thing he thought that night.

He downed the rest of the beer, tossed the cup aside, closed his eyes, and let his head fall back.

All of a sudden, there was nothing.

And it was _everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there's anything you'd like to see in future chapters, drop it in the comments!


	6. Aberdeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra unknowingly discovers something he spends the next 10 years of his life looking for. He finds the answer to a question he wouldn't ask for another three years, and of which he didn't answer for many, many years after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is longer than the others, and by that I mean it's 16 pages long. I had probably the most fun writing this one so far, though! Enjoy!

There are some things the swiftness and ferocity of a young metabolism simply can’t keep up with. Mass amounts of alcohol that end with a blackout are simply one of these things.

_Let there be light._

When nothing bled into something, and that something became light from a window splashing directly onto his face, all Crowley could feel was calm consciousness, the warmth of early morning sun, and a rather humbling sharp pain directly in his eyeballs and head.

He rolled over in order to escape the light that was causing this pain, but the rush of movement went straight to his head in the form of more pain. He had to steel himself from this, pausing immediately and holding his breath.

It passed eventually, and he was able to carefully finish rolling over and settle in. He hadn’t yet opened his eyes, but that meant nothing - he could tell something was different, and it wasn’t his hangover. This bed was facing a different direction than his bed did. Carefully, he attempted to recall memories from the previous night, looking for a sign.

He’d gone to the party, gotten horrendously drunk, played beer pong, and-

 _Oh, no._ He must have blacked out.

He prepared himself for a moment, before finally letting his eyes open up. Off-white walls, bookshelves, and a second bed across the room greeted him. Ezra’s bedroom. How did he get there? Upon further inspection, the other bed was empty, so he was alone. He wondered where Ezra was.

-

“Hello?” The response came out groggily, speech weighed by sleep.

“Uh, yeah- Ezra? Is this Ezra?”

“Yes? Who’s this?” The voice startled him more than the name on the screen of his cell phone. That was most definitely not Crowley - no, that was a young woman.

“It’s Sarah- Sarah Greene? Listen, can you make it to Eli’s party right now?” All the worst possibilities raced through Ezra’s head. Crowley was arrested. Crowley got in a fight. Crowley got hurt. Crowley was in the hospital, or he overdosed on some stupid drug- god, this was stupid. Ezra’s heart was pounding.

“Y-yes? Yes! Yes, I’ll be there soon- is he okay? Crowley’s okay, right?”

“Crowley blacked out, and he’s not awake right now, but Dagon said you could probably bring him home or something and told me to call you.” Ezra, ever the pragmatist, briefly tried to parse out how he’d get Crowley home.

“O-alright, okay, I’ll be there soon?” He hung up. At least Crowley was okay. He got up, changed into some more street-appropriate clothes, and set out as quietly as he could to avoid waking his mother.

He decided to walk all the way to the other end of the neighborhood. It wasn’t that far of a walk, and bringing his bike would only complicate things when it came time to haul Crowley home. It would have been easier when they were kids, being roughly the same size and all. Now that Crowley had actually hit puberty, he’d quickly shot over the 6 foot mark, and Ezra stayed a modest 5’8 for the time being. This was going to be difficult.

Now, one wouldn’t expect it, but the aftermath of a party is one of the most off-putting experiences one could have at 3 in the morning. The house truly was a transient space, with the front walk being perfectly in order, and the backyard (visible from the front step) a wreck.

It felt as if he was walking somewhere he most definitely should not be walking. Most people had left, so when Ezra pushed the door open, most people were unconscious or right on their way to being so.

It felt odd, pushing the door open and just waltzing in, but he figured knocking would be a faux pas when it came to parties. He scanned the immediate living room for any telltale flashes of bright red hair, and upon not seeing Crowley, continued on through the rooms. It didn’t take much searching to find the back patio, Sarah Greene, Dagon, and Crowley.

Sarah seemed to be the most sober out of all of them, pushing a cushion underneath Crowley’s head, going on about _something_ while Dagon watched, clearly a few more than three sheets to the wind.

“Oh! Um, hello,” Ezra greeted the three (two) people.

“I think this is yours,” Dagon slurred, nudging Crowley’s arm with the toe of her boot.

“Most certainly not _mine,_ of course, but I have come to collect it- him, that is. Oh, dear, you really were telling the truth when you said he was out cold.” Ezra picked up Crowley’s arm and dropped it over his chest. It fell limply, and the taller, drunker boy did not stir.

“Yeah, he looked pretty bad before he blacked out,” Sarah added.

Contrary to popular vernacular, blacking out does not necessarily mean passing out. A blackout that one experiences while intoxicated is simply where one loses all sense of moral inhibition, and is no longer able to remember events, thus creating a blank spot in memory. With alcoholics, this can cause violent behavior, or simply behavior one would simply regret.

Losing consciousness can happen during a blackout, or before a blackout. To the person in question, they could think they have lost consciousness during a blackout, when they were simply unable to recall anything.

Crowley had done both.

“Yeah, he was actin’ real stupid. Almost fell into the pool. He was lucky Levi grabbed him and made him lie down. That’s when he passed out.”

“Thank you, Dagon,” Ezra said as he kneeled beside Crowley, struggling for a moment in lifting him up before he was able to get him around his shoulders. He’d carried Crowley before, briefly, but he was always conscious. Lifting up a limp human body is difficult, and generally unpleasant for more than one reason.

“Psh- whatever. Just take your boyfriend home, I’m leavin’.” Ezra’s face flushed at the implication. He could play it off - it was dark out, and he could pretend it was because he was lifting Crowley up, anyway. He watched Dagon toss a cup into the grass, wave, and head off through the yard to her own home. She must not live too far away.

Ezra shifted the weight of Crowley on his back, sighed, and headed through the house to carry him back. With this position, he could free up a hand to open the front door (carefully and quietly), and sneak back upstairs to his room.

He lay Crowley on the extra bed in his room, liberating him of his shoes and coat, unwilling to undress him further. It would have felt too intimate, for something Crowley wasn’t awake for. Ezra missed Crowley.

He could dismiss that feeling as easily as it came up. No, he wouldn’t pity him - Crowley had gone and gotten so drunk he passed out, and it was _stupid_ of him. Ezra was angry at him, and that’s why he didn’t put any more work into making him comfortable. That was all the mercy he was going to get! Most of all, he was worried.

He’d heard stories of kids their age getting blackout drunk, and he heard stories of those very same kids dying of alcohol poisoning. He couldn’t just wake his mother up and tell her Crowley had been so stupid to drink that much. He could Call Crowley’s father… but from what he’d heard, he wasn’t the most doting guy ever, and might not even care.

Ezra spent a few minutes standing by the edge of the bed, a hand on Crowley’s chest, feeling the steady heartbeat and the rise and fall of his breath. _He’ll be okay,_ he could hear from somewhere within him, or maybe within Crowley. He’ll be okay.

-

It took Crowley a full minute and a half to sit up in bed. The blanket fell back off of him, and he could feel the fact that he was still wearing his t-shirt and skinny jeans from the night before. Sleeping in skinny jeans is one of the most unpleasant experiences known to man, and Crowley no doubt had creases in his skin to prove it.

He sat for another five solid minutes with his head resting in his hands, pressed over his eyes to keep out the light and push back the throbbing headache he was faced with. He’d never had a hangover this awful. It felt like his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. Just to test this, he opened his mouth a few times, and found it was just unbearably dry.

He felt he was still a little bit drunk, too.

Just when he was going to attempt to swing his legs over and get out of bed, he heard the door open, and he saw Ezra walk in. He paused, as if startled, and then set his facial features back to “calm, yet clearly a little bit angry”. It was a good look on him.

“Good morning, Crowley. I didn’t expect you to be up at this time.”

“Yeah, ‘bout that, what time _is_ it?”

“Almost 8.” Oh, so it was wholly feasible for him to still be a little drunk. Brilliant.

“Okay.” He paused. He could see his coat and shoes on the floor, next to the bed. “Why the hell am I in your room?”

“Because you passed out last night, and I got a call in the middle of the night from some girl saying I had to come and get you!”

“Oh, yeah, that’ll do it-”

“Crowley, do not make jokes about this! I cannot _believe_ you would go and do something so stupid to yourself. Did you just think you were going to spend the night in their yard?”

“Well clearly I didn’t expect to pass out, it just… happened! Angel, I’m sorry.”

“How do you even drink that much? I told you to be careful, Crowley. I was worried.”

“I’m guessin’ that first question was rhetorical, but beer pong is brutal, I’ll tell you.” He chose to ignore the bit about Ezra being worried. That just made him feel bad, which was probably the intent. Ezra acknowledged the fact that he ignored it by giving him an incredulous look, and then huffing with a shake of his head.

“I told you to be careful. You could have gotten hurt.”

“Yes, I know - listen, it won’t happen again. I swear on it. It was just a mistake.” Ezra softened at the promise. It may have been empty, he knew, but Crowley cared enough to say it in the first place.

“Thank you, Crowley.” He let out a little breath, and then glanced down. “Oh- I brought you some water. You must be feeling terrible.”

“Yeah, understatement of the damn century.” Crowley held his hand out to take the water when offered, and took a long sip to wet his mouth. He drank the rest of the glass slowly, so he didn’t end up making himself ill over it. He’d done that before, and it wasn’t pleasant.

“Who’s Sarah?” The question came as Crowley was reaching over to set the glass on the bedside table, and he damn near dropped it. Not because the name meant anything, but because the tone was so pointed, he could have sworn he was in a sitcom getting drilled by his wife about the secretary.

“Sarah? Little more specific?”

“She said her name was Sarah Greene. Who is she?” Crowley drew his eyebrows together in concentration. Sarah Greene?

“Name sounds familiar. Why? She pick a fight?”

“No, she was just… she was the one who called me, from your cell. She was standing there with Dagon when I came to collect you.” Crowley shrugged at the explanation, let out a puff of brief distaste when Dagon’s name was mentioned, and bent to pick his jacket from the floor. Speaking of cell phone…

“Speaking of cell, you know where that got put?” Upon patting over the pockets, he didn’t feel anything. It wasn’t like he was in a panic, it was just that he spent a lot of money each month for that cell phone, and having it come up missing after a party where anything could have happened was a little concerning.

“Oh…” Ezra sounded a little sad, maybe guilty. “I didn’t think to ask, or check for it when I got you. Perhaps Sarah still has it? Or it’s still at the house?” Crowley made a face that indicated he very much did not want to be dealing with this right now, with this headache, and this hangover. Even worse was that he felt dirty, and likely smelled bad from being in the same clothes he played beer pong and passed out in.

“Right, well.” Crowley narrowed his eyes in deep thought. It wasn’t actually deep, but any thought at all could be considered deep in this state. He pushed himself up to standing, put his coat on, and reached for his shoes. “Your mum won’t get suspicious to see me walking out, will she?”

“She’s out at the shops, she doesn’t even know you’re here.” Ezra watched as Crowley stood.

He looked as if something else was occupying his thoughts, like he wanted to say something - and he did. Ezra turned his eyes away, and vowed to never, ever bring it up again, unless it came up by another source.

“Brilliant. You coming? I doubt anybody’s woken up at that party yet, sources say the parents are gone all weekend. Nobody’ll ask questions,” Crowley finished pulling his shoes on, and straightened up (not as quickly as he usually did).

Ezra grumbled out a little ‘besides us’ as he turned to pull some shoes on, soon tailing behind Crowley in their trip back through the neighborhood to track down his cell phone.

“So what exactly is your plan for looking for it?” Ezra only questioned once they’d gotten out onto the sidewalk. He had to walk a bit faster to keep up with Crowley, whose longer legs and superfluous swagger only ensured he’d be walking quite fast.

“Look around the yard, question anybody who’s there. If we get nothing, I’ll just interrogate Dagon. She’s due for one of those, anyway.”

“Due for- a what? An interrogation? Crowley, dear boy, your friends are so odd.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, squinting. God, he really needed a pair of sunglasses, or _something._ This was torture.

Between Crowley’s hangover, and Ezra’s leftover anger (and sleep deprivation), the two didn’t hold much conversation on the way over. There were a few comments on wildlife, but nothing of true substance.

Upon reaching the house, Crowley circumvented walking through the house to take a B-line to the back yard. Ezra, ever uncomfortable with this, hesitated by the door for all of 15 seconds debating on knocking, before he went ahead and jogged a little to catch up with Crowley.

When he did catch up, Crowley was already circling around patio furniture to look around on the ground. Ezra could recognize a young lady and a young man asleep on the larger patio swing that he saw the previous night.

“They wouldn’t know anything.”

“Pardon?” Ezra turned his head, to where Crowley was peering down into the pool.

“Those two. They were already passed out when I got out here.” Crowley pointed to the vague area of the swing from where he knelt down, from behind his back. “I could see you looking at them like you wanted to wake them up.” He hesitated to answer as he watched Crowley, stooped over, locks of flaming red hair falling down onto his face, hazel eyes searching to the bottom of the water.

There was a soft halo of light surrounding his already dark figure, which reduced him to a mere silhouette, if Ezra were to squint. A silhouette with flaming hair and golden eyes.

It was biblical. 

Crowley stood up, and Ezra looked away.

“I was _not_ looking at them like that,” Ezra huffed, deciding to make himself useful and call the phone. “You did have your ringer on, yes?”

“No, who the hell keeps their ringer on?” Ezra decided not to respond, in such a way that yelled _I use a ringer._ But Crowley already knew that.

The two boys looked around the backyard for another solid five minutes before Crowley threw his hands up in the air in defeat.

“Alright, alright- we’re going to Dagon’s, and if she doesn’t answer the door, I’ll find a way in.”

“I’m fairly sure her parents-”

“Her folks are never home at 8 in the morning, trust me. They both work graveyard shifts to pay the mortgage on that big ass place of theirs.” Crowley didn’t even ask this time, just grabbing the sleeve of Ezra’s jumper to pull him off through the yard.

If Ezra were a few years younger, he would have thought it was very mature and grown-up of Crowley to know what a mortgage was. He was 15 now, though, so all he did was silently try and figure out what a mortgage was as the two weaved through other peoples’ back yards to get where they were going - which was very risky business (it wasn’t really, people recognized Ezra and could probably tell they had places to go).

If Ezra were a few years younger, he would have felt bad for Dagon. Crowley seemed unphased by the inside of the house (after they were let in by who seemed to be a younger sister), but to Ezra, it was all new. The house was as messy and unkempt as one would expect a frat house to be. The walls were yellowing (Lord knows why, Ezra thought), there was clutter stacked on almost every single available surface, and the interior was stuffy with a dizzying amount of the aftermath of cigarettes. Their parents must smoke. Or maybe Dagon smoked.

His question was graced with an answer when Dagon herself came back down the staircase behind Crowley, a lit cigarette balanced between her pointer and middle finger.

Ezra had been so busy trying not to pass out or get sick by the smell of it, he hadn’t noticed the two were in the middle of an animated (and quite pointless, he found) argument about literally nothing. It wasn’t even about the phone, which Crowley now had in hand - no, they were just shouting about pointless mumbo.

It truly was a magnificent and impressive sight, knowing the both of them were likely very hungover. He spent a few moments staring Crowley down until he caught eye contact with him, clear that the expression on his face was enough to signal that he _needed to leave this place right now thank you very much._

“Whatever, doesn’t even matter.” Crowley took an (unlit) cigarette from Dagon and tucked it behind his ear. “I’ve got to get going, now that I’ve got this. Try not to trip up the stairs and snap your neck while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get out of my house, parasite, and try not to contract a flesh-eating disease.” Crowley gave a sloppy salute as a goodbye, and sauntered back out the front door. Ezra followed more closely behind than was really necessary or polite, scoffing once the door was closed.

“Some people, I swear. Are all of your friends like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like- you know what I’m talking about! Like _that!”_ Crowley looked at Ezra, for a moment, but perhaps not for a long enough time that it said anything. He simply shrugged, and bounded down the front steps to get on the sidewalk. He left the question unanswered.

Ezra wouldn’t know it, but he’d just stumbled across two very important revelations. These revelations were important and useful to both boys, but Ezra didn’t notice it. Crowley did.

The first thing Ezra stumbled across was the fine line between upper middle class and lower middle class. Dagon may have lived in a house similar to Ezra’s, in the same neighborhood as Ezra’s, but their lives were quite dissimilar.

From Ezra’s natural perspective (which had been molded by his upper middle class parents and upbringing), Dagon and her family were _dirtbags._ Of course, Ezra didn’t actually think this - he was far too nice. It was his first instinct to think that, which meant his mother likely would have thought that about Dagon, and said it out loud.

The second revelation Ezra had stumbled across, which he was bound to notice even less, was the fact that the fine line he’d just discovered (“like _that!”_ ) was the very reason he didn’t know where Crowley lived, had never met his father, never talked to his brothers, and had never heard about his mother.

He'd discovered the line that made all the difference between church on Sundays and staying in the park until 11 at night.

He'd discovered the line that separated Crowley and himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any comments, questions, criticism, or anything you'd like to see in upcoming chapters, please drop a comment below! I love to read them!


	7. Ghosts Are Real, Right?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley stumbles across a question he already knows the answer to, without having a solution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter to juxtapose the last, longer chapter.

“I am _not_ wearing that.”

“Why not? Come on, you can’t tell me you’ll be wearing _that_ instead.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? Come on, as if that thing will fit me, I’m at least eight feet taller than you.”

 _”At least.”_ Ezra held up the shirt one last time, cocking a brow over his glasses.

“I was serious about asking what’s wrong with what I’m wearing, you know,” Crowley replied. He was lounging on the second bed in Ezra’s room (which may well have been his own bed by now), in black skinny jeans and a (shockingly) black button-down.

“It’s so-”

“Dark.”

“I was going to say _monochromatic_ to spare your feelings, but yes. It’s too dark!”

“Angel, the day I care about what your brother thinks of the color of my shirt is the day I settle down in the countryside with a white picket fence and three children - and that is to say, _that day isn’t coming.”_

“Alright, point taken.” Ezra hung the shirt back up in his closet (which was a nice powder blue and would have looked very nice instead of the black on black), having been clearly defeated. It wasn’t often he got pushback from Crowley, so when he did, he knew not to shove. “You know, I really don’t think you should be so worried. I think you two will get along fine.”

“I am not worried!”

“You’ve checked the time five times in the past minute and a half, dear boy, I can tell when you’re anxious.”

“Well I’m not anxious for his approval. It’s two people I’ve never met before, and at least one of them has known you for longer.” What Ezra gathered from that last part is that it absolutely was about approval, and Crowley just didn’t want to admit it in any way that wasn’t roundabout.

“I haven’t met his partner either, just calm down over the whole deal. I’m sure she’s plenty nice - I wouldn’t think Gabriel to go for anybody particularly sour.”

“Alright, alright-”

“Boys! Come down, Gabriel’s here!” Ezra gave Crowley’s shoulder an affirming squeeze as he exited his room first, heading down the stairs.  
Crowley watched as the two brothers exchanged a look, and a “good afternoon”. Crowley watched as Mrs. Fell headed up onto the front step, chattering along with whom he presumed to be Gabriel’s girlfriend.

Crowley almost choked on his own tongue as he saw who walked into the house behind her, and definitely stopped breathing.

_All he could feel was an all-over burn. It was one of the worst pains he’d ever felt, but trying to thrash around did nothing, and trying to scream only had him letting out a breath. No sound escaped his lips._

_He tried to open his eyes, wide, wider- all that greeted his vision was a deep and terrifying darkness to the likes of which he had never experienced before, and never wanted to experience again. He wanted to go home. He wanted to climb into bed and cover himself with his blankets and cry._

“Crowley?”

“Huh- sorry? What was that?”

“I said ‘come downstairs and say hi’. You’ve been standing there staring.” Ezra was halfway up the stairs, giving him a look he’d never seen before. The front door was closed, and he heard voices coming from back in the kitchen.

“Right, yeah, just caught up in myself.” He blinked a few times to clear the darkness from the edges of his vision - creeping, wavering, ready to slowly fade in and take over. Waiting.

He followed Ezra down the stairs, through the living room, into the kitchen.

His first impression was that Gabriel was much taller than both Ezra and his mother, and looked nothing like either of them. _He must take after his father,_ Crowley figured, but he’d never actually met the elusive Mr. Fell.

Whenever they were under the same roof, they never seemed to come in contact. Perhaps it was on purpose. Perhaps Crowley didn’t need to know why.

“Oh, Anthony- Gabriel, this is Anthony. Anthony, this is Gabriel, and his girlfriend Beatrice.”

His second impression was that he was now taller than Beelzebub - _Beatrice_ \- in which the last time he saw them - _her_ \- they seemed to be twelve feet tall, with twice as much power.

Crowley nodded, shook Gabriel’s hand, and simply stared at _Beatrice._

“Fancy szzeing you here,” they (she) said.

Crowley winced. And then he shrugged.

“Well, you know. Small world and all.” Gabriel gave Anthony and Beatrice a look as if to ask, _do you two know each other?_ Beatrice gave a look as if to say, _we can discuss it later._

When Crowley flicked his attention away from this display, Ezra was giving him an identical questioning look, and he could see the brotherly resemblance. He shrugged in response, and ignored it. Mrs. Fell seemed to have it all locked down and covered, however-

“Oh, my, do you two already know each other? How splendid! Why don’t you all head to the living room to catch up, dinner will be on in just a minute.” She smiled sweetly. She wasn’t giving them a choice.

Beatrice took Gabriel’s sleeve as they all shuffled out to the living room. Crowley gripped at his own sleeves.

“What are you doing in Tadfield?” Crowley had tried to seat himself as far away from Beatrice as possible, but in the grace of kindness, the two other boys in the room had gone to their own devices and conversation and left them to talk.

“I live here, asshole.” He said it quietly enough so the curse could slip unnoticed by Gabriel and Ezra.

“Really? I didn’t think welfare could get you a house in this area code, let alone outside of Mancheszzter.” Crowley twisted his face up in annoyance, turning his head away.

“I don’t live around here,” was the only thing he could think to respond with.

“And you just hang out around here, attracting trouble? You must be a horrible influenczze on little Ezra. I almost feel bad-”

“As if you’re any better for Gabriel. I hear he was a devout Christian before he left, and now he’s ended up with you. If you want to talk damage, let’s do.”

“It wazzs his own choice, Crowley.” They were smirking now. “He came onto me.” Crowley felt sick.

“I bet you haven’t even told him, you sick fuck.”

“Hypocrites go to Hell, Crowley,” Beatrice reached out. “I know you haven’t told _him.”_ Beatrice rested a hand on Crowley’s shoulder.

Maybe it was supposed to be comforting, if anybody else could see it happen.

To Crowley, it was sick, and disgusting, and twisted, and condescending, and before he knew it he was on his feet, and he had slapped Beatrice across the face.

_”Do NOT fucking touch me, Beelzebub!”_

All too late, Crowley could hear the blood rushing in his ears. His face heated up, his palms started to sweat, and he noticed three people staring at him with shock, and one with anger. He knew he probably looked mortified.

He set his jaw, he changed his expression, he turned, and he walked out.

“Crowley-!” He heard the voice - Ezra’s voice - cut off when he slammed the front door. It was perhaps a little rude of him, he thought, but he could live with that for right now.

For right now, he cared about getting away from that fucking house as quickly as he could without entirely making any more of a scene than he already had - which meant that he was angrily walking quite fast, and wiping hot tears off of his face with his sleeve.

“Crowley, _wait!”_ He supposed he had no chance of making it out of that one without some fallout. Ezra sounded worried, and scared, and angry. Of course he sounded angry. He’d just openly yelled at and assaulted his brother’s girlfriend in front of everybody.

Crowley kept walking, and kept ignoring. He could hear Ezra jogging to catch up, and eventually a little bit of huffing and puffing when he did catch up.

“Crowley!” Ezra grabbed his shoulder, and pulled to spin him around. As soon as he accomplished this, his expression held surprise and regret in response to Crowley’s own expression of pure rage.

“What! What the fuck could you possibly want that it is _so important_ that you have to chase me down the bloody street!” Crowley thought he may have stamped his foot like a toddler, but most of his energy and consciousness was being funneled into being angry.

“I-” Ezra looked like he was ready to run. Crowley wouldn’t have blamed him. Crowley was a bad influence. Ezra drew his eyebrows together, and tilted his lips into a frown. “What was that back there?”

Crowley’s first impression was that he was angry, but he shoved this notion aside when he could hear concern creeping into his tone. It made him sigh, and shuffle his feet, and soften.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“You certainly did not have to call her the devil-”

“That’s th- that- I- fuck! That’s their bloody fucking name, actually! Well- it was. At some point. Bloody skeeve probably changed it.”

“Crowley, what are you on about? Can you please explain this to me? Some of it? I want to know what’s going on.”

Ezra looked resolute.

The sun was going down, Crowley noticed. He looked behind Ezra’s head to where the sky was blushing pinks, spilling orange and gold hues in a halo around the flaming ball of sun.

The light seemed to catch Ezra’s feathery blond hair aflame, soaking it in a shade of bright ginger orange. From this perspective, he looked like an angel. A real one, one with flames and six wings and four faces.

Needless to say, it was biblical. He was struck, all at once, with far too much emotion, and in the worst possible time.

“They- okay, I refuse to call them Beatrice, that’s just stupid. Beelzebub… lives in London. I lived there for a while. My mum had a flat, five or six years ago.” Ezra’s eyebrows raised at the mention of his mother. That was the first time he had ever heard a single breath of reference to the woman, and he’d figured Crowley simply didn’t know her or who she was.

“It’s a long, long story, and I won’t tell it. Beelzebub was involved with… their family was involved with really, really bad things, as you can guess by the name they chose for their kid. They tried to drag me into it, basically. Well, my mum-” Crowley looked away, somewhere past Ezra. It looked like he was searching for something, thousands of miles away.

“Anyway. Their parents raised them into it, and they continued the family tradition. I suppose until recently, unless ‘Beatrice’ is just trying to sway your good Christian brother to the dark side.” Crowley cracked a joke, but he could feel a lump forming in his throat. He hadn’t looked back at Ezra since he looked away that first time.

It almost happened suddenly enough to startle him, but he caught himself before he reacted badly. Ezra wrapped his arms tightly around Crowley’s torso, latching onto him. Crowley looked down, his hands raised in mild bemusement, before he returned the embrace.

He blinked away tears, and swallowed the lump in his throat. He was struck again with emotion, and it took him a moment to categorize the emotion.

His stomach dropped, much like the rest of his body, as he fell.

Ezra didn’t really understand what happened in London, five years ago, but he understood that sometimes, when you want to forget things, they never go away.

He thought that maybe if Crowley could talk about it, it wouldn’t bother him as much.

“I- um, I really do have to go back home.”

“Yeah, yeah, no.” Crowley brushed a hand past Ezra’s feathery blond hair, and pulled back. “I don’t think I’ll go with. I’ll go and find somebody to annoy.” As if to tell Ezra _hey, look, I’m okay,_ he offered a little smile.

“I really am sorry I can’t stay with you, Crowley.” Ezra studied the smile for a quiet moment. “ _Please_ do not go out and get drunk tonight.”

“Okay, angel. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yes, I will. Goodnight, Crowley.” Crowley waved as he turned and kept walking.

He ended up bothering Dagon and Levi.

He ended up getting very, very drunk that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cried a little bit while writing this, I'm not going to lie. More details will be revealed!
> 
> If you have any questions, comments, criticism, keysmashes, or anything you'd like to see in future chapters, please feel free to leave a comment! I enjoy reading them a lot!


	8. I'm Not Drowning Fast Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue eyes met gold in a moment that was undeniably as chaotic as it was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter in this fic to date. Another party chapter. I'd apologize, but liars go to hell.

Two boys sat together in a park, on a bench near the treeline. One wore a button down, a sweater vest, and khakis. He had a book in his lap, laid across his legs, closed. One walking by wouldn’t be able to tell what the title was, but they’d be able to tell the book was quite old.

The other boy lounged with sunglasses, a dark t-shirt, a black jacket, and even blacker skinny jeans, smoking a cigarette. One walking by would probably think they didn’t know each other, that maybe they were even annoyed by the juxtaposing presence less than 2 feet away, but they’d be incorrect in this assumption. 

“Come on, angel, she _specifically_ wanted me to ask you to come, don’t be a wet blanket,” Crowley said. Ezra was now used to the smell of cigarettes, after being exposed to it for the past six months (as long as none of those things got lit on his property).

“I just- I don’t know, Crowley, after what happened back in November…”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re never letting me live that down, I get it. You don’t even have to drink, it’s just a stupid party anyway. You can if you want, though, I’m not driving.” Ezra thought over the arguments. They were the same ones he’d heard three times already: he was specifically invited with Crowley, he didn’t have to drink, it was just a party.

Dagon was throwing a party for the weekend. Ezra hadn’t been to Dagon’s house in more than a year, and frankly, by now he had some awful associations with it. Maybe… maybe it would be good to leave those behind, and enjoy himself a little bit.

“Okay, I’ll go. But I’m _not_ getting drunk, and I’m only going because somebody clearly needs to keep an eye on you.” 

“You’re going because you want to, admit it.” Crowley watched Ezra was a mostly amused, partially fond expression. He could be brazen with his expressions, he’d found - wearing sunglasses really did a number on shoving your feelings down. It also helped that Ezra refused to acknowledge anything at all.

“There’s nothing to admit. When is this shindig, anyhow?” Crowley took a reverent moment to mourn over Ezra’s use of the word ‘shindig’, though played it off as if he was trying to recall.

“Friday? Can’t be Saturday. You’ve got a couple days, don’t get too anxious. I’ll help you pick something to wear.”

“Knowing you, it’ll make me look like I’m heading to a- to a rock concert or something,” Ezra snarked, fondly.

“Well I’m not making you wear _my_ clothes, you idiot. But I’m not letting you wear a sweater vest to a party.” Ezra grumbled in a way that said that, without intervention, he very well would have worn a sweater vest to that party. He’d never admit to it, not to anybody but Crowley (who already knew).

-

A week before Crowley managed to convince Ezra to go to the party, Crowley was busy getting haggled to go to the very same event.

"Come on, Crowley. You love shit like this, just come and get drunk and cut loose a little. You've been real aloof and stony recently," Dagon argued. They were both sitting on her couch, smoking darts and sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels.

"Yeah, guess I have been. Whoops."

"Seriously dude, what's up? Daddy say he don't love you? Girl reject you?" Dagon nudged his arm with the neck of the bottle, and Crowley took it.

"Yeah, something like that - the last thing, of course." 

"Oooh, _Aaanthony._ Did baby get his first crush?" She jabbed him in the side, and Crowley knew he wasn't going to get out of this one. He scoffed, elbowed her, rolled his eyes, and took a swig of whiskey. 

"I think describing it as a crush is childish, don't you? Then again, you are a child, what am I thinking."

"Who is it? You can't just tell me you fancy somebody and not tell me who it is. Do I know her?" She took the bottle from him and leaned forward to set it on the coffee table, clearly occupied with more paramount topics. Crowley shoved her while her center of gravity was off, and she had to catch herself with a yell before she went headfirst into the floor. "Hey-!"

"Yes, you know _him_. Not personally, though, and I don't think he likes you very much, so you should take it as God's divine signal to bugger off about it."

"Wow, Crowley." She feigned surprise. "I never knew you were a pansy!" Dagon did, in fact, know Crowley was a "pansy". Few people did, but if you got close enough to him, making the connection was not difficult at all. This statement earned another rough budge.

"'M still not telling. And you will never be able to figure it out, because I know you'll just-"

"Is it Bible Boy?"

Ah, fuck.

"...Yes." 

"Awwwh, Crowley… you're the worst. Lucy will never let you live it down if you end up with him."

"See, that's the problem - we never will. He's a good Christian boy with a good Christian father who's never home and a good Christian mother who goes to church on Sundays. I don't exactly know his philosophy on that but in my experience a lot of people think homosexuality is a sin. Also, he's oblivious, and will never, ever notice, which is just great!" He snubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray sitting beside him, the jerk of his arm full of spite. Dagon understanded that Crowley didn’t exactly seem to care about what other people thought. Love was selfish, in that sort of way.

“Well,” she said, taking a puff of her cigarette. “I’ve got an idea to get you two to hook up, at least.”

“Dagon, you’ve never had a good idea in your entire life.”

“I _never said_ it was a good idea! It was just an idea. Fuck, sue me for wanting you to finally hook up with somebody and stop brooding all the time.”

“Okay, fine.” Crowley reached out to grab the abandoned bottle and take a swig. “Let’s hear it. Your idea.”

“Okay, so, it involves you coming to my party, obviously.”

_”Obviously.”_

“So, you come to my party, but you convince him to come with you. You both get drunk, and we all know you make some… interesting decisions while you’re sloshed, so you’ll totally just decide you want to make out with him, and then you’ll do it and be together forever.” Crowley furrowed his brows together, wiping the leftover liquor off of his mouth.

“That-”

“Is the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard, I know-”

“No, that might work.” Dagon looked almost offended that Crowley would find her idea worthwhile, as if he was losing brain cells by just considering it. And dammit, he could be.

-

Crowley and Ezra were walking through the neighborhood, on the sidewalk, after dark. They were on their way to Dagon’s, who only lived a block away, but existed on another plane of reality. Crowley was smoking a dart.

“So- how many people will be there tonight?” Crowley could hear the nervous edge in Ezra’s voice, and patted him on the shoulder.

“As if I got an RSVP list about this party. We’ll just have to see who’s there. Trust me, you might think a smaller party sounds less overwhelming, but kickbacks are boring.”

As they approached the front door (firmly shut), Ezra could smell cigarettes and booze. He wasn’t sure if that was the smell permeating from Dagon’s daily life, or if that was the smell of the party. Crowley opened the front door, ushered Ezra inside, and left it open as he walked in.

Ezra’s first impression was that the smell was a mix of both, that it was very loud in here, and that he didn’t possibly belong here. He nervously cast a glance to the boy who entered with him, and realized he looked right at home here. Though, it must have been quite difficult to see in this dark room with those sunglasses on. 

Crowley took his arm, and navigated through the crowd until he got to the kitchen. Various bottles of alcohol were sitting out on the counter, tandem to an open cooler with plenty of cans of cheap beer. 

Crowley grabbed one as if he was taking a can of diet Coke, and then took another, offering it to Ezra. _I’m at a party,_ he reasoned to himself, _I should loosen up. Surely one cheap beer couldn’t hurt, right?_

Crowley wiggled the can a little bit, _’Take it or leave it, but hurry up and choose,’_ and Ezra took it. Even with the cold aluminum can resting in his hand, he felt like he was doing something wrong, and bad, and secret. He got a certain rush from this feeling, which pushed him to crack the tab off and take a sip.

“Oh, God-”

“What’s that, angel?”

“This stuff tastes _horrible._ ”

“Yeah, it does.” Crowley took a sip of said horrible-tasting cheap beer, and shrugged. “You don’t notice it once you’re drunk enough. Trust me, liquor tastes much worse, be thankful.” He jokingly clapped Ezra on the back.

“Anthony!” Crowley turned his head suddenly, and Dagon came into view as she pushed her way into the kitchen. “I see you got Ezra to join you.”

“Yeah, took days. Nice party.” Dagon shrugged, flipping her hair back off her shoulders.

“Hospitality is a skill, Crowley. Anyway, Lucy and Levi just heard you got here, they’re out for blood. I have to go and make sure nobody’s passed out in the bathroom, now.” Crowley scowled, Dagon winked, and Ezra looked confused. He’d heard those two names before, and he’d seen the people they belonged to, but only from afar.

“Am I going to finally meet this elusive couple?”

“Maybe, if they can figure out how to undo the knot their tongues are in. They probably just want to play pong or cards or something.” Ezra visibly brightened, but he didn’t comment on it. This was his first party, and he might get to play beer pong! Ezra always thought he’d be quite good at it, since his aim was pretty good (but not particularly stellar). 

“Oh! That sounds like fun.” Ezra took another tentative sip of his beer, to appear Cool and Casual, but he ended up making a little face at the awful taste anyway. All of it seemed to cancel out, and he was back to his boring old self, sticking out at this party like a sore thumb. 

Crowley just let out a chuff, and beckoned him along to what looked like the sitting room. It could have been, at least, with how many seats there were. One couch was effectively taken up by a young man (clad in dark clothing similar to Crowley, but much less “punk rock” and more “these clothes are normal and happened to be dark”), and a young woman, wearing what appeared to be just a bra, a leather skirt, and fishnet stockings.

She, of course, was on top of the young man., in a very… hedonistic display. Crowley must have caught Ezra staring with a reddening face, since he took his sleeve at the elbow, and tugged him along.

“Oi, assholes, you’ve got company. Knock it off.” Crowley took a pillow from an armchair and tossed it at the two before dramatically turning to flop down. 

The girl finally pulled herself off and sat properly, taking her phone out to correct her (now smudged) black lipstick. After a moment, she reached over to wipe it off the boy’s mouth.

“Real classy, you two,” Crowley continued. Ezra sat down beside him, deciding not to interfere. 

“We were alone, until you came in,” the young woman said. “Who’s this?” She pointed at Ezra, who, in turn, blushed again.

“Ezra, Dagon wanted him to come. Ezra, this is Lucy and Levi.”

“Oh-! Pleasure to meet you both.” Ezra grinned nervously, and took a long sip of his beer to give himself something to do. Lucy waved, and Levi nodded in greeting. 

“Matt coming tonight?” Crowley asked, leaning over the arm of the couch to peek into the drawer on the side table.

“No, he made some shitty excuse, said he was grounded or something,” Levi answered. Levi looked a few years older than he and Crowley, and Ezra wondered if he had graduated yet. 

“Boo, whore. So he’s with his other friends getting high?” Crowley was now unabashedly digging through the drawer of the side table, seeing what treasures he could find. Ezra knew he was only snooping, and wouldn’t actually steal anything from the house.

“Damn, I haven’t talked to Matt in _ages._ I hear he’s getting into hard shit, though, so that’s probably a good thing.” Lucy put her phone away, satisfied with the state of her makeup. Levi shrugged and Crowley scoffed, examining a pack of playing cards from the drawer.

“If I ever fancy a puff of blow, I know who to ask, then.” Crowley tapped the cards out into his hand, starting to pass through them to count them. Ezra supposed Matt was somebody else they knew, who was apparently taking drugs these days.

Lovely. 

“Ezra, could you shuffle these for me?”

“Of course!” Finally, something to do with his hands. He set his tin on the side table opposite to the one Crowley had ravaged through, taking the stack of cards.

Ezra had gone through a phase of really, really liking magic. In Europe he could spend hours and hours watching the street magicians pull coins from peoples’ ears and make things appear out of thin air. Part of going through a magic phase is becoming very, very good at shuffling cards in cool and exciting ways, and Ezra always thought it would be a cool party trick (if he’d ever gone to a party).

Here he was, at a party, showing off his card shuffling tricks. Crowley watched with familiar amusement, having seen it plenty of times before, and the other two people in the room oohed and ahhed as Ezra made the cards dance around in his hands. He was familiar with each and every trick, regardless of the fact that his lap wasn’t exactly the flattest surface in the world, and managed not to drop a single card! The deck was old enough that it was easy to hang onto the cards.

When he was done, he handed the deck back to Crowley, looking very confident and proud of himself. 

“Fancy a hand of poker, ladies?” Crowley took the cards back, pulling a round table from the center of the room closer to where he and Ezra were sitting by hooking the toe of his boot around a leg.

“I’ll go and fetch Dagon, and some more drinks.” Lucy stood up, gave Levi a big wet kiss on the mouth, and headed out with a little smile. 

Crowley watched her get up and leave, his mouth a straight line, and his eyes hidden. Ezra fiddled with the tab on his beer can.

“So- when did you two get together?” Ezra couldn’t resist starting some conversation. Crowley laughed.

“Oh, I don’t know. A year ago?”

“Things must be going well, then,” Ezra hummed. Levi chuckled.

“Yeah, something like that.” That seemed to make Crowley laugh, and Ezra wondered if he was missing out on some big joke.

 _”Something like that,”_ Crowley mocked.

“Hey, man, I don’t see you with a girlfriend. You’re just mean to any girl who’s interested in you.”

“I’ve got bills to pay, Levi, I just don’t buy into the scam of spending a bunch of money on a girl I’m only with to get laid. That’s basically prostitution.” Levi’s face went red and he opened his mouth to say something, when Dagon and Lucy interrupted by re-entering, both carrying a bottle of liquor and some shot glasses. Dagon set one of them down explicitly in front of Crowley, and gave a not so subtle wink. Crowley scowled.

“What is that?” Ezra leaned over to take a look at the bottle. Patrón. 

“It’s tequila, angel. Do you want to try it? It tastes awful.” Ezra looked around the room. Everybody seemed to be acutely aware that this was Ezra’s first party, maybe his first time drinking - they were all waiting with bated breath to see if he’d accept. Crowley was looking at him with a genuine decision, not willing him one way or another. Ezra would hate to disappoint, though.

“I- yes, sure, I’ll try it. It sounds festive!” He set his half-empty can of beer on the table, and watched as Crowley paused, shrugged, and poured one of those very small glasses up with the clear liquor. Ezra had never taken a shot, nor had he ever seen a glass so very small. It was quite adorable, he thought.

He picked up the glass, and took a little sip, immediately recoiling and scrunching his face up.

“How is it?” Dagon questioned idly.

“Oh, God. That is… awful.” he stared at the shot as if he was genuinely upset at the fact that this drink existed, because he was.

“Well, suck it back, then.” Crowley waited and watched, an arm draped over the corner of the couch.

“I just- all of it?” Crowley nodded (perhaps a bit sarcastically) at the boy’s query, so Ezra squeezed his eyes shut, and knocked it back. It took him a moment to actually swallow, since he wasn’t at all practiced with taking shots, and he immediately started to cough. Everybody in the room had a little laugh before Lucy started pouring out shots for everybody else.

It could have been the liquor seeping into his veins, and it could have been the atmosphere (in fact it was very likely both), but as the group taught him to play poker and rummy and other card games, and they all loosened up, Ezra was quickly having some of the most fun he’d had in a long time. 

He was also getting pretty drunk. Most young men who had never gotten drunk before had a very low tolerance for alcohol, and Ezra discovered this the hard way. After losing two or three hands of shot poker, he decided to sit out for a while and just watch while the room spun around him.

It was one of the oddest experiences for him, being intoxicated. Everything was moving and still at the same time, and his head was swimming. He must have been zoning out, since Crowley getting his attention seemed to snap him back to attention.

“Doing alright over there, angel?”

“Oh- yes, dear. Just a tad…”

“Drunk,” Crowley finished. 

This display between the two boys was enough to have Lucy and Dagon share a similar confused look. After all, within an exchange of three lines, Crowley and Ezra had used pet names with each other, and Crowley had finished the other’s sentence.

The look shared between Lucy and Dagon was some shade of “are they dating?”

Sadly, they were not.

Ezra nodded at that, pointing at Crowley. “Yes, that. Yes.”

“Do you want to get some air?” Crowley said it so dotingly and with such concern in his voice that Dagon simply concluded they had already hooked up. Operation Get Anthony To Get Some was clearly already over, since they were so clearly in love with each other.

Ezra nodded in response to Crowley’s question, and stood up. The two left the room together, and Crowley led him outside, an arm around his shoulders so he didn’t stumble and fall down.

It felt absolutely perfect and correct to be holding Ezra in such a way, Crowley thought. It hit him like a bullet to the chest when he reminded himself this was just because they were drunk, and Crowley knew where the back door was.

Crowley let go when Ezra sat down on the concrete patio. All the furniture out there was wet from the recent rain, so they both opted to just sit on the ground. When Crowley sat down, their knees brushed together. Ezra didn’t move, so Crowley didn’t, either.

“I’m glad I came with you, Crowley,” Ezra said after a moment. Crowley took his sunglasses off so he could see past the glow from the lights inside. 

“Yeah, see? I told you it’d be fun. Just don’t drink any more.” Ezra laughed a bit. A golden, perfect, mellifluous laugh.

“I wasn’t planning on it. Thank you, though.” Ezra looked over at Crowley, and Crowley met his gaze. Blue met gold in a moment that was undeniably just as chaotic as it was perfect. Crowley felt a rush of adrenaline, his heart rate picked up, and he knew that if he was going to go for it, he needed to do it now.

He leaned the tiniest bit towards Ezra, slowly - if he wasn’t paying so much attention he wouldn’t have even noticed it. His arm twitched, almost moving up to raise his hand to Ezra’s face, but instead Crowley looked away, into the grass, and then into the stars. He chickened out.

In his peripheral, he saw Ezra look down, and then turn his head to look up at the very same sky. The night was clear, and the stars burned against the backdrop of the dark sky.

Ezra shifted, hopefully quietly. He inched his way over, closer - almost close enough to lean on Crowley. He could say he was more drunk than he was as an excuse. He was almost there, he just had to-

“Anthony!”

Crowley sighed dramatically, pushed himself up, and stormed inside. Ezra stood with him, but decided not to follow, due to it looking pretty hectic inside. He could see Crowley walk inside, and head to the kitchen - Ezra crept around to stand by the bushes so he could peer into the kitchen window from the lawn.

He couldn’t hear what either person was saying, but they seemed to be locked in a heated argument. He could only really see Crowley, and the arms of whoever he was talking to - they were shorter. The hands and forearms suggested female. He saw a flick of black hair come into view, and then the back of a head - Dagon. 

Ezra wasn’t at the best vantage point at the moment, and could probably see a lot better if he went to another window, or went inside. He didn’t want to move. He felt he’d be caught if he did, and he felt as if he was witnessing something he really should not have been.

All of a sudden, Dagon reached out to take the collar of Crowley’s jacket, yanking him down. Crowley’s face was obscured behind Dagon’s head. That didn’t matter.

“Oh- oh my God.” Ezra covered his mouth with his hands, rushing to go and sit back down on the patio. _They just kissed,_ was all Ezra could think.

Crowley eventually did come back out and sit back down, looking a little frustrated (as he usually did after dealing with her). Ezra could see in the light that his bottom lip glistened. He wouldn’t mention it. He didn’t want to.

Crowley’s knee brushed past Ezra’s when he sat down again, and this time, Ezra shifted over. 

It was a movement of closure, for Crowley. He knew that he had no chance of pursuing this ever again, and he could file that away.

-

“Anthony!”

Crowley sighed dramatically, pushed himself up, and stormed inside. He shut the door behind himself, stumbled a bit when there was a sharp yank on his sleeve, and followed the yank into the kitchen.

“You know, for somebody who wants me to ‘hook up’ with him tonight, you really are playing with fire right now.”

“I thought- wait, you haven’t hooked up yet?”

“No! God, I was just about to kiss him, too, if you had just _waited!”_

“Well sheesh, lover boy, nobody was able to tell! Usually when someone uses such obvious pet names, they’re totally shagging.”

“Dagon, you’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met. Did you actually need something?”

“Well I was _gonna_ drill you on the details of your little date, but clearly you two are just super in love and haven’t said it out loud yet!”

“It’s not my fault! Every time I try I just think - what if, you know! His mum and I are still on awkward terms after I blew up on his brother’s girlfriend.”

“Right, your cute little outburst - listen, fuck his mom-”

“You really shouldn’t say that-”

“You need to get out there and make out with him, clearly! Have you seen the way he looks at you? He’s clearly really into you.”

“What do you mean, the way he looks at me? It’s nothing new.”

“Okay, that makes it worse. Just go out there, and kiss him!”

“Dagon-” She rolled her eyes, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and yanked him down.

“Crowley, you pathetic idiot, if you don’t kiss him right now I’m frog marching you out there and asking him on a date for you.” She let him go, and poured a couple shots. 

Crowley sighed as he picked the shot up. She was right. He shrugged, knocked it back, and then headed back out.


	9. Liars Go To Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley lies. Hastur and Ligur tell Ezra about it.
> 
> Ezra lies, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come get yall fuckin juice

If he was being honest, Ezra didn’t find out when Crowley’s birthday was for a few years after they met. It was odd - Crowley would usually give him a small gift on his birthday, a note, or something - but Ezra never had the chance to return the favor. He knew it was in autumn (around November is usually when he started adding a year whenever anybody asked him), but it took Ezra five whole years to figure out the day.

It was the 7th. Ezra only figured this out due to the fact that on one November morning (the 7th), he saw a shitty old beater car pull into his driveway, and stop. Crowley climbed out of it, looking more proud than ever.

 _The day I turn 16,_ Crowley always said, _I’m getting my license._ Ezra marked the date down as Crowley’s 16th birthday.

-

Crowley hadn’t been to class in three days now. It was concerning, yet not terribly so - Ezra had called him, and he was fine - but concerning nonetheless. Ezra knew Crowley got sick very infrequently, ignored it, used a lot of hand sanitizer, and took a lot of cold medicine.

Three days was really pushing it. He’d missed Monday without protest (hangover, he said, when Ezra called), Tuesday he admitted his illness, and Wednesday was when Ezra caved, because this would be _a hell of a lot easier if he could just visit._ However, as was the fact that he was commonly reminded of, Ezra only had a vague idea of where the boy lived, and an even murkier idea of why that was. On Wednesday he decided he didn’t care, and he’d ask around until he found out.

He spent all day trying to work up the courage to approach the group of teenagers he’d only talked to once before. Honestly, it was a little embarrassing, having been bucking himself up since first period, but it needed to be done. The opportunity presented itself twice - once when Dagon waved at him in the halls, but he wasn’t ready - and another when school let out.

He saw Dagon flinging her bag into the back seat of a sedan in the parking lot, Lucy leaning in through the driver’s window. Ezra took a breath, steadied his hands on the straps of his bag, and tentatively approached.

“Dagon! Er, hello. I was wondering if you had a minute?” She looked back as she shut the car door with a slam.

“Bible Boy. Shoot.” He took this as encouragement.

“Do you- do you happen to have Crowley’s address?”

This was a natural line of logic Ezra was able to form - that she knew where he lived, of course. After the whole fiasco when she kissed him in her kitchen, he just sort of assumed they were an item. They spent plenty of time together without Ezra (he could only assume), so of course she’d know where he lived. She cocked a brow, grinned, and got her phone out.

“Sure thing, what’s your number? I’ll text it to you.” It didn’t seem like a grin that was particularly polite. In fact, it seemed quite mischievous. Ezra didn’t seem to want to pass the opportunity up, and quickly relayed his information, giving her a big thanks and a wave before he set on his walk home.

After the party, he’d gotten the impression that Dagon really was a nice girl, and she had been dealt a frankly very crappy hand. He was glad to have changed his perception of her, though sometimes it seemed as if she’d been more nice to him after that party. Strange, she was. She was Crowley’s type, he thought.

He could be satisfied with Crowley’s decision.

When he got home, he did all the things he usually did, though it was mostly to occupy himself out of mind - and luckily for him, it wasn’t long before he heard his text tone chime off (because he kept his ringer on, thank you very much). The address, he decided, seemed correct - it was in the area he knew Crowley to live in. It was a relief knowing it was unlikely Dagon was trying to pull a fast one on him.

He felt a little bad, doing this without telling Crowley. Ezra reassured himself that Crowley would do the same thing - and surely he couldn’t be too mad if Ezra was already there, right? It couldn’t be _that_ bad. Right?

The neighborhood in question, he knew, was a bit farther away than the schools were, so he took his bike to speed things up. Last thing he wanted to do was come home after dark because he didn’t have a mind to take faster transportation! He didn’t know how to drive a car yet, anyhow. Usually if he needed to go anywhere without his mother, Crowley offered to take him in his little beater car.

 _It’s a piece of shit,_ Crowley said when he first bought it, _but it runs._ Ezra thought he couldn’t have spent very much on it. But, it did run, and not too many people at their school could say they bought their own car without their parents’ help, so Crowley was proud of it nonetheless.

The car in question was a piece of suspicion, to Ezra. He checked the address, double checked it, but Crowley’s car wasn’t in the driveway. There was a slightly less shitty car (emphasis on slightly) that seemed to be held together with black duct tape. It matched the house it was sitting in front of. The house was small, the siding was dirty, and he thought maybe that window up top was cracked. It could desperately use a good washing and a fresh coat of paint, he thought - and maybe somebody to pick up the yard. Or mow the lawn.

He was stopped on the sidewalk by now, examining the house, still on his bike with one foot down on the concrete to hold himself up. It gave him a start when two _men_ walked out of the house. They both looked… well, they didn’t look great, that was for damn sure. They were both disheveled in dress and in form, and honestly looked quite dirty.

Perhaps friends of Crowley’s father? Maybe one of them was his father. Neither one of them resembled Crowley at all, and one of them had dark skin and kinky hair, styled close and short.

After Ezra had been examining these two men, they noticed him. It would have been easy, he stuck out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood, and he decided now was a great time to speak up.

“Um, hello! Is C- Is Anthony here? I’ve heard he lives here,” he smiled a bit sheepishly. The men looked between themselves.

“Depends on who’s asking,” the taller one said.

“I- Ezra Fell, I’m a friend of his, coming to visit.” That seemed to have caught their interest. Recognition, perhaps.

“Oh,” they both said, in unison.

“May I ask… who you two are?”

“His older brothers,” the taller one spoke up again. Both their voices were rough, and he could smell cigarettes when they got a bit closer. Ezra stepped off his bike and leaned it against his waist.

“Oh, lovely, I’ve heard of you two,” All bad things, of course, but he wouldn’t mention that, “Hastur and Ligur, correct? Quite unique names, I think-”

“Oh, Ligur, he’s mentioned _names,_ ” Hastur spoke up (or, who Ezra assumed to be Hastur, based on process of elimination), and they both seemed amused. Neither one laughed, a trait he could recognize as familial.

“Yes! Er- is Anthony in right now? I’ve heard he’s ill, I was just swinging by to visit-” Again, he got cut off, by the pair breaking out into laughter. Ezra gave an awkward little smile, knowing there was definitely more to what he’d said than he thought, and there was nothing of what he said that was actually funny.

“I almost feel bad for you,” Ligur said.

“He can’t tell the truth,” Hastur continued.

“And I’m sure he’s been lying to you for a while,” They were speaking in turn, so fluidly that Ezra had a hard time noticing, but stilted enough to make the hair on the back of his head stand on end.

“He’s in London,” Hastur finally concluded. Ezra paused to think that over. The concept felt wrong to him (of Crowley being in London). It made him a bit uneasy.

“London? What’s in London?” Ezra’s tone was more confused than conflicted. He planned on calling that afternoon anyway, just to be sure.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Sounds like him not to talk about it,” He could only tell Ligur said that since he was watching.

“Must be why he’s in London.” They reminded him of Raguel and Judesial, twins who spoke the same tongue and a different tone.

“His mum’s just got out of prison, and he’s taking a visit.” Ezra could tell he looked conflicted, hearing this information. It didn’t make sense. Back when Crowley met Gabriel, and talked about how he knew Beelzebub, he talked about his own mother with something Ezra thought was contempt. "He says he'll go live there once he's graduated."

He supposed if he was faced with the same situation, he’d visit his father.

“I… I see. Well, thank you two, I think I’ll be on my way now.” Ezra didn’t wait for a response before he cast another glance at Crowley’s house (not home, he reminded himself), his two older brothers that looked nothing like him, and the neighborhood in which he spent the nights in when he wasn’t in Ezra’s room. He turned, got on his bike, and went home.

-

"Crowley? How are you feeling?"

"Oh, you know, head hurts like hell. I should be back tomorrow, I think, if everything works out-"

"Crowley, I know you're not ill." He could hear Crowley fall silent. He was still on the line, he heard breathing.

"Who told you."

"I- listen, Crowley. I got worried, so I- I know I shouldn't have done it, I'm sorry. I asked Dagon for your address. Your brothers told me."

"Okay." The thing Ezra found most odd was that he didn't even try to play it down or deny it. "Well- okay. Sorry I lied."

"Why are you in London, Anthony?" Ezra's tone of voice wasn't necessarily sad. He sounded concerned for Crowley, and he sounded hurt for Crowley.

"I know what it sounds like, and I don't know what they told you, but I was really just visiting for a day or two, that's it."

"Are you even supposed to be over there?"

Ezra wasn't stupid - contrary to popular assumption. Oblivious, maybe. Gullible, yes. But he wasn't stupid. He was a tad familiar with family courts (not from his own experience, his parents were still together), and knew fathers were hardly ever rewarded full custody.

Even if Anthony's mother was in prison, something fucked up had to have happened for him to visit on such an awkward time once she was out, which just led Ezra to conclude that Crowley was not supposed to be over there. Crowley's silence, and then vague rambling non-word noise confirmed this suspicion. Ezra sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I- I'm not angry. Or disappointed. I won't tell anybody, either, I just wish you would have told me instead of telling me you were ill."

"Alright. Won't happen again, angel, I promise."

"Thank you, Crowley. Please do mind how you go, when you come back."

"Okay. I will." Ezra paused. He was unsure whether to bring up Dagon, or what happened. Crowley must be stressed. He didn't bring it up.

"I missed you."

"Thanks, angel." There was a beat where both boys supposed something was missing from the conversation. Both boys ignored it, and said goodbye, and hung up.

For the first time, Ezra felt like he knew Crowley, regardless of the bad stuff. His best friend was starting to become known to him, and he questioned why Crowley hadn’t been open about it in the beginning.

Ezra supposed he wasn’t all that transparent about the things that bothered him, or that he was ashamed about, but couldn’t control. It was only after an awkward conversation when they were 13 that Crowley learned Ezra had a father who was well alive and married to his mother - just… absent.

He supposed everybody hid that kind of thing. It just seemed to take up so much of Crowley’s past, Ezra felt like there wasn’t much mundane stuff that happened in his life.

Crowley was in class the next day, but neither of them talked about what happened. Crowley told everybody he’d been sick, and Ezra lied with him, and backed him up.

 _You didn’t have to do that,_ Crowley said, as they drove home.

 _I did it for you,_ Ezra replied. Liars go to hell, Ezra thought.

For the first time in 16 years, he went to bed without praying at his bedside.

No amount of praying would fix anything unless people fixed it themselves. God was just a middleman, and Ezra realized if he wanted to get something done, he had to do it himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there's anything you'd like to see or say, leave a comment!


	10. Repent.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra has a dream he really regrets having.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, Kazzy.
> 
> This chapter is borderline explicit. Not enough to bump the rating up, it's just talk - but if that makes you uncomfortable, you can skip the chapter, and it won't affect the plot or the flow of the story.

Ezra couldn’t exactly say that his sleep that night was the most restful. He always thought that people could sleep really well when they were drunk, but he discovered exactly the opposite of that happening. He actually slept like rubbish, if he were to be honest.

His dreams were the part that made it so restless. His dreams had never bothered him, he hadn’t had a nightmare since he was perhaps 11, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to categorize this one. When he woke up, for a split second, he swore it wasn’t a dream. It felt real.

He and Crowley were sitting in a room Ezra couldn’t say he’d ever seen before. He must have, to be able to pull a memory, but he couldn’t remember sitting on that couch. It was similar to Dagon’s sitting room, but a bit more cluttered, and there was just one loveseat, where Crowley was draped beside him.

Crowley wasn’t ever sitting, and _draped_ was the only way he could think to ever describe him. It was a wonder the wind didn’t pick him up and carry him off in the park, like a silk ribbon or a chiffon scarf.

The only problem with using that adjective is that Crowley was one of the least delicate people he’d ever met. He was always stomping around, speeding down main roads, talking too loud. Ezra never found it annoying, or brash - he’d never have admitted it, not even to himself, but he found it attractive.

This loveseat was quite small, Ezra realized, in the dream. He didn’t notice that it was a dream, and for all he knew, this really did happen while the two were still drunk. It didn’t. In the dream, they were listening to Tchaikovksy and drinking wine, sitting and discussing something. Ezra didn’t pay attention to the words that were coming out of his mouth, all too attentive on Crowley’s mouth, and the way it moved, the way his whole face moved when he spoke. He was quite expressive.

Ezra was sitting on his hip, legs pulled up under him, facing toward Crowley. From this vantage point his eyes could drift down the other’s form. The jacket he always wore, a regular t-shirt, and those _damn leather pants._

They were the epicenter of the whole dream, of his whole attraction. He didn’t wear them often ( _They’re just a bitch to clean,_ Crowley said,) but it was certainly a treat when he did. Ezra never paid attention to how he noticed it until he was looking at them now.

He thought those pants must be awfully tight, with the way they bunched up at his ankle, creased under his knee, and stretched taut and semi-gloss over his thigh. Must be like a second skin there, over his thigh, Ezra thought.

He flicked his eyes back up to Crowley’s face when he caught himself staring, his eyes drifting to dangerous territory. He’d better like to stare at Crowley’s mouth.

“This record is a bit dry, isn’t it? I’m going to put something else on.” Crowley held his wine glass out to Ezra to hold, and then stood to fuss with the record player.

Ezra could only watch helplessly as Crowley sauntered away from him, and suddenly Ezra understood what so many girls meant when they described Crowley with quite raunchy forms of attraction.

Crowley had a habit of walking from the hips, putting one foot directly in front of the other in a straight line, which resulted in a quite flamboyant swagger that twisted his torso with each step he took. Ezra’s eyes weren’t focused on his upper body, though - he hardly had the mind to examine that.

Instead, all of his concentration was currently honed in to how the pants clung to the other’s thin hips and shaped them out. Everything about Crowley was very thin, very sharp, and very dark (but Ezra knew he had a soft spot for little kids and ducks and the stars). As somebody who was none of those things, it drew him in and left him curious. They were polar opposites, and the magnetic field surrounding them both just pulled him tight.

“My eyes are up here,” Crowley was leaned against the table the record player was sitting on, one hip resting against the edge. His arms were crossed over his chest, and there was a smirk resting on his lips. Ezra’s face turned a shade of red dark enough to disgrace the wine, and he let out a little cough as he looked away.

“Got caught up in thought,” he weakly explained. Crowley nodded smugly as if to say ‘yeah, right’, and dropped the pin on the record he’d placed in. He could tell it was some kind of old rock music Crowley liked to play (bebop, he often said jokingly). Ezra didn’t feel guilt for being caught staring in this dream. He was only nervous.

Crowley sauntered back over and took his glass of wine from Ezra’s hands, taking a delicate sip. Ezra was left staring again at the way Crowley offered his hand out. It took the other boy a second to comprehend it before taking Crowley’s hand to lift himself up, setting his own glass down in the process. Crowley did the same, and laced their fingers together.

“Do you know how to dance, Ezra?” He was still smug, but there was an air of fondness to it, now. Crowley laced their fingers together, his opposite hand snaking its way over his waist to rest on his hip, and his skin flushed hot.

“I- well, I can’t- say I’ve ever had somebody to teach me, before,” Ezra managed to get out. He reached up to rest his hand on Crowley’s shoulder, where he knew it was supposed to go. He’d seen other people dancing before, he got the idea - but he’d never done it before.

With his hand on Crowley’s shoulder, he could feel him shrug, and tug Ezra closer. Their bodies pressed together, and every point of contact was tingling and buzzing and catching aflame. He could smell the musty afterthought of cigarette smoke lingering on Crowley’s clothes, in his hair, and he could smell cologne which reminded him of cinnamon and pinewood. He even smelled sharp.

“It’s easy,” Crowley said, speaking softer than he usually would have. Ezra wondered who taught Crowley how to dance. This thought was quickly replaced without any emotion as they took a few awkward steps together, slowly but surely getting more natural and comfortable as they settled into the beat of the music.

It wasn’t all cute ballroom dancing, not from Ezra’s perspective. He could still feel Crowley’s hand burning on his hip, and every time he shifted his hold, it sent a jolt up his spine.

The first few times he tripped and stumbled were on accident, due to learning the ropes, but the next few were due to him focusing much too closely on Crowley’s hands, and where they were. Ezra eventually shifted his own hand from Crowley’s shoulder to his waist, sliding down until he felt the edge of fabric that separated his shirt and his leather trousers. The second his fingers met the smooth texture, his heart jumped up into his throat.

Such gestures could not go unnoticed. Crowley watched Ezra’s face as he performed such a gesture, letting go of Ezra’s opposite hand, which just made it to Crowley’s other hip.

“Having fun, angel?” Ezra’s face flushed again, this time at how smug and amused Crowley’s voice was.

“Simply admiring your trousers,” Ezra’s voice was a bit breathy, and much more confident and even than he’d ever be capable of.

“Go ahead.” Crowley smiled fondly, his golden eyes half-lidded. The tone of his voice dropped, low and sultry. “Feel free to touch.”

Ezra could feel the vibrations from Crowley’s chest, and it made his skin tingle and burn. He looked up at Crowley, nodded, and looked back down. He thumbed over the dart holding the pocket, letting his hands skate lower onto Crowley’s thighs, where the leather was pulled tight over his skin.

He felt reverent, like this was an act of mercy allowed to him by Crowley. Like this was some kind of worship. As he was quite experienced with worship, he knew all the customs and stipulations of it.

He moved his hands back up to Crowley’s hips, and in an act of sheer juxtaposition, pulled away from Crowley’s hold to drop to his knees in one fluid movement.

He looked up to examine Crowley’s face once he’d settled, and their eyes met and locked together in a similar fashion to the way they had many times before. Satisfied, Ezra looked back down again, pushing Crowley’s shirt up the slightest bit, leaning in to kiss the exposed flesh just above the button of his trousers.

When he woke up, it took him a couple minutes for the memories to flood back, and he felt as if his whole body was burning up with shame. Perhaps the sheets would simply catch on fire and burn him up.

He could never tell anybody about this. He sat up in his bed in the early morning, his head in his hands, every nerve in his single body tingling with anxiety. How could he think of Crowley like that? It was so… wrong. It was wrong.

He didn’t exactly have a problem with homosexuality, not really - people could do whatever they wanted. When Ezra was faced with it, all he could think was that it was wrong, and unnatural. He shouldn’t feel that way for his best friend. Oh, God, Crowley would hate him if he ever found out.

That morning, he was quiet when he climbed into Crowley’s car, and he was quiet on the ride there. He said he was just tired, but he really just needed to recover from… all of the things he was feeling.

When he was faced with looking at Crowley the memories came bubbling up again. Maybe he’d never accept the feelings he felt for him.

Maybe he'd never have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment if there's anything you want to say or see!


	11. Witch!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is named after his great grandfather. Anathema recognizes him.

School was an environment Ezra had gotten very used to. He and Crowley didn’t really have any classes together, and mostly trusted to see each other before and after, occasionally at lunch (they didn’t have the same lunch period, so Crowley would just skip class for a few minutes to chat).

Ezra did manage to find one or two people he could spend time with, and one girl who had recently transferred to the district. She was in Ezra’s Upper Level Literature class, and she was quite smart, albeit odd. She always wore dresses and skirts, usually floor-length with black boots and big, round glasses.

Ezra, already having had some luck making friends with new kids, introduced himself on her first day. She introduced herself as Anathema (which Ezra didn’t learn how to spell for almost two weeks).

As it turned out, they did have the same lunch period. When she spotted Ezra she waved him over, having been sitting on her own with a book. He gladly joined her, and for the next few weeks, they talked about all sorts of great books together during their lunch period. They got along quite well, Ezra thought - even though they never really talked outside of school. Some friendships were just like that, he supposed!

He learned (gradually) that she had an interest in quite supernatural things. Spirits, auras, palm readings, really things Ezra might describe as “witchy” - but it was all just fun and games, anyway. Ezra’s mother might describe her as a gypsy, or a hag, but what she didn’t know certainly couldn’t hurt her. Ezra didn’t think there was anything harmful or sinister of it - the girl just really liked zodiacs and that type of thing.

They discussed all that witchy kind of thing, Ezra talked about religion (which she seemed to much enjoy), and they related the two topics in quite entertaining ways.

On one particular day they were discussing something like reincarnation in religion (something both of them were quite well-versed in), when a familiar dark figure walked over and sat right down next to Ezra, who just kept discussing Catholicism. Anathema seemed a little startled (or intimidated), and gave a little wave.

“But anyhow, I think it’s really interesting how the topic made its way into some belief systems, and not others. Is something the matter, Anathema?”

“No, nothing- I take it you two know each other?” She pointed between Ezra, and this new boy, who laughed a little bit.

“Ezra, I didn’t know you’ve been making friends behind my _back._ I’m hurt, and betrayed, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it,” the boy wearing all black said.

“Oh, shut it, Crowley.” Ezra took an apple from his bag, and sat it down in front of the other boy, who gladly bit into it.

“So who’s this?” He questioned, around a mouthful of fruit.

“Swallow before you speak, dear, it’s unbecoming. This is Anathema, from my literature class, I’ve mentioned her before?” Crowley’s face lit up in recognition, and he swallowed before he spoke.

“Oh, the _witch!_ Yeah, yeah. Hey, Anathema. Name’s Crowley. No matter what anybody tells you, the middle initial doesn’t stand for anything, it’s just a J, and don’t call me Anthony.” Anathema looked a little bemused with all the information that was piled in front of her, but simply smiled and nodded.

“Of course- wait, did you say your name was Anthony Crowley?” Crowley shrugged, took another bite of the apple, and nodded.

“Why, you hear something about me?”

“Oh, no, I don't- No, I haven’t heard anything about you. Are you… Are you related to… Aleister Crowley?” Crowley’s habit of talking with his mouth full came back to bite him, seeing as he fully inhaled some of the fruit and started choking. It was temporary, and after just a few moments he was able to breathe.

“How the bloody hell do you know who he is? Heaven’s sake, I didn’t think you were an _actual_ witch.”

“It’s, a family hobby. My grandmother is a witch, too. But, are you?” Crowley turned his face into something sour.

“Great grandfather, mother’s side of the family. Never met the bloke, obviously.”

“Does your-” Anathema was cut off by a burning glare from Crowley, who knew what she was going to ask ( _Does your family follow his practice?_ ) and a confused look by Ezra, who then decided to speak up.

“Who… who is Aleister Crowley?” Anathema decided she could answer this question.

“He was an author and artist. He wrote about the occult, and about sinister magic and the like,” She glanced up to Crowley to be sure she wasn’t saying anything incorrect, and continued when she decided she hadn’t, “and in occult study, he’s actually a quite prolific figure.”

“He was basically a crackpot Satanist who liked to call himself a magician,” Crowley added. Ezra nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

“Oh,” he finally said. “Well, Crowley, I didn’t know you were so closely related to somebody so famous,” he added with a little smile. Crowley just waved his hand.

“Never had somebody ask me before. Suppose I’ve never met a witch before. Who’s your grandmother, again?”

“Agnes Nutter. I just moved in with her, in that neighborhood just a few blocks away.” Crowley nodded, and Ezra furrowed his brows.

“Is- did she just move in around two years ago? I believe I live just a few houses down. My mother did try to talk to her, when she moved in, but came back and told me she was a Satanist. Do you remember that, Crowley?”

“Oh, yeah, and then you ate shit in town off your bike. Yeah, I was always curious of her, never thought she was actually a follower of Satan. Interesting.”

“She is _not_ a Satanist,” Anathema cut in (it was hard to get a word in with these two, she found). “She simply has occult practices, and they’re… minimal, at best.”

“Oh, lame, I was going to invite her to all my Satanic gatherings.”

“Crowley, _really,_ I’ve told you about making jokes like that.”

“Maybe it’s a faux pas if you go hang out at God’s house on Sundays, Ezra, but I’m off the hook for that. I think if Hell was real-”

“You never know-”

“I don’t think blasphemy is what’s going to land me there.”

“Oh, heavens no!” Ezra agreed. “It’d be your scarf,” he quipped. Crowley took his “scarf” in hand, offended.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s got tassels, dear, those were outlawed in 2010.”

“Oh, shut it, angel.” Crowley, now petulant, took the scarf off, and tossed it onto the table. “There, happy?” Ezra reached over to pop Crowley’s jacket collar down, examined him, and nodded. Crowley sighed, and popped it back up.

“You should go to class, Crowley, before you get in trouble and get detention again.”

“Yeah, I’d never heard somebody complain so much that I was the one who’d gotten in detention.” Crowley stood up and patted Ezra’s shoulder on the way out. Ezra took Crowley’s scarf-like-thing, and put it in his bag. Anathema looked amused, and a little startled. “Sorry about him, he’s a handful.”

“You seem to take it in stride,” she said. Ezra shrugged fondly, sipping from his water bottle. “How long have you two been together?” Ezra almost choked (we love a cinematic parallel), but managed to get it down the right pipe before he drowned himself.

_”Excuse me?_ Oh, heavens no- we’re not, we aren’t together. In fact, I’m fairly positive he’s got a girlfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry- I just, assumed, with how close you two seemed. I apologize. It’s, good that you two are so close, then?” She tried to remedy the situation. Ezra seemed unnaturally bothered by the assumption, and she wondered if something else was going on under the surface. She wouldn’t dig.

“It’s quite fine. Just startled me, I suppose.” He smiled a bit apologetically.

“He’s certainly interesting. I think I’d like to talk to him more about the knowledge he has on the occult.”

“I… will certainly tell him that you’d like to arrange something, especially since you live so close.”

“Wasn’t it you that I lived close to?” She raised a brow as she asked.

“Oh, he’s usually with me, anyhow, you’ll never find him at his own home. He’s never there.” Anathema raised her brows, and nodded, curious about why that was.

She was satisfied that he’d be passing the message along, anyway - surely the grandson of Aleister Crowley would have a wealth of knowledge about it. If she played her cards right, maybe she’d get to have a conversation with his mother - oh, she was so very excited about a potential conversation with the _granddaughter of Aleister Crowley._ She’d been meaning to get into the occult, anyhow.

The two boys discussed it when Ezra had gotten into Crowley’s car to drive home (or somewhere else, but it was usually home).

“Now I know why you two have never talked outside of school, your mom would blow her lid if she knew you were friends with a real-life witch.”

“I didn’t know she was a real witch! I thought she was just a teenage girl who really liked star signs and reading palms!” Crowley looked over at Ezra, laughing a bit.

“Boy, just your luck, huh? You really have got to stop making friends with the new kids, they’re all Satanists.”

“I have a hard time believing you’re actually a Satanist- Crowley, watch the road please- you’d be too afraid of all the demons you summon.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know, the demons would be afraid of me,” Crowley argued as he watched the road.

“They’d take one look at your skinny jeans and turn tail back to Hell. You couldn’t be a Satanist, they’d kick you out for scaring all their demons off.”

“You’re just jealous because you can’t pull off the color black as well as I can, and you know it.” Crowley passed another car, laying on his horn as he did.

“My mother would kill me if I owned that much black. Also, you never told me your great grandfather was a _cult leader_ -”

“Okay, it’s occult, first of all, and I’m only correcting you because there’s a very big difference. Second of all, I never really met the guy, he died before my mom was even born. I just didn’t think the information was all that relevant.” Ezra knew when not to push a topic. When Crowley pushed back, Ezra didn’t shove.

“Okay, well, anyway. You know, after she left-” Ezra started to laugh a little bit as he spoke- “She asked me how long we’d been together!” Crowley laughed right along with him. Aside from the whole obvious jolt he got when he realized Anathema thought they were a couple, Crowley genuinely thought it was a little funny.

“I had to tell her about Dagon, you know!” Ezra continued. Wait,

“What? What about Dagon?”

“You know, how you two…” Ezra gestured vaguely.

“About how we what,” Crowley looked over at him. Ezra realized that they were not, in fact, together.

“Okay, I might have thought you two were an item for a while.” Past the original disgust, Crowley laughed at that, too.

“God, what the hell made you think we were together? Ugh, can’t believe you’d thought that. I’d rather rip my fingernails off.”

“Didn’t you two kiss at her party? I- I saw you through the window.” Crowley looked absolutely puzzled. It was when he was in the kitchen, obviously - and then he remembered how Dagon grabbed him.

“No, didn’t kiss, that’s revolting. We didn’t kiss. I think she was yelling at me about something, actually.” So that was why Ezra moved away. Ezra nodded.

“That’s a relief. You two would be a terrible couple.”

“Even worse, considering she’s into girls.” Ezra was a little relieved, now. At least he didn’t have to worry about Dagon.

After an afternoon of Crowley making fun of some of Ezra’s books (which led Ezra to believe he’d read them) and lots of banter about how ugly Crowley’s scarf was when it was returned to him, Crowley set off from Ezra’s house with a comment about how he should “probably go bother the witchy girl”. Crowley figured since he already knew where she was living, he could just head right up and knock.

So he did. Ezra had pointed the house out to him and bid him good luck, and just a few minutes later, he was chiming at the doorbell. He did it more than once just to be annoying, before a silver-haired old woman (who only looked old in the sense that she had gray hair) opened the door.

“Who are you?” She demanded, rather than ask. Crowley’s neutral expression didn’t budge.

“Your granddaughter wants to interrogate me on my lineage.”

“Oh, You must be Crowley,” her facial expression softened and she turned away from the door to call for Anathema. She then smiled at Crowley, waving him on inside the house. 

The house was quite… well, it had the same floor plan as everybody else’s house in this neighborhood, so Crowley already knew the basic idea of what to expect. Ezra really was not joking about this woman being a witch. There was plenty of witchy  paraphernalia  all over, which he could only assume was super legit.

He could assume these things because his mother’s London flat was similar, and it didn't exactly faze him. A moment later Anathema came bounding down the steps, wearing the witchiest fucking outfit he’d ever seen a 13 year old girl wear (which was kind of a feat considering who he hung around). He offered a little nod, and she waved, leading him out to the kitchen table.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee, water?” Crowley took a seat at the table, looking around said kitchen. They both sounded American, he doubted he had a high likelihood of receiving a proper cup of tea in this household.

“Yeah, coffee sounds fine. Three sugars, spot of cream.” Anathema nodded and got to work fixing two cups of coffee, talking over her shoulder.

“So, anyway. Does your mother follow the practices of Aleister, or did it die out in the family?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it orthodox any more. Certainly didn’t die out, though.” He nodded at the girl as she set down a mug full of coffee and sat across the table. 

“Oh, so you’re familiar with some of his beliefs? Do you practice magic?” Crowley scoffed, sipping at the coffee to see if it was at a drinkable temperature. It scalded his lips, so he assumed that was a ‘no’.

“Haven’t since I was small. My mum still does, she’s got all kinds of shit left over from the family tree. Books and stuff like that, been sitting in a storage locker for, fuck, 5 years? Went through some of it with her the other month.” 

“Oh? Do you happen to… have any of it at home? I’m assuming you live nearby,” she certainly seemed interested. Crowley rested the side of his face in his palm.

“She’s got it all in London, where she lives. I haven’t dipped any toes into the waters of magic since I moved in with my dad.” He could have been more accusatory in tone, he realized, but she really had no reason to know. He could still have a little bite in his inflection.

“Oh, I see.” So it was a custody issue. She nodded contemplatively. Crowley didn’t seem like the type of guy to take well to condolences, so she didn’t offer. “Was Aleister actually involved in Freemasonry, or is that just a rumor?” Crowley grinned.

“Only people who think he was sacrificing babies think he was a Mason. Most of what he did, to be honest, was just to fuck with people.” Crowley took another sip at his coffee, deciding it was cool enough to not burn his mouth. Perfect drinking temperature. “The whole magic and wizardry thing wasn’t even proper _magic_ \- not as fantasy books will have you believe. It’s all psychological and internal.”

“But,” Anathema countered, “he did call himself a prophet, and he used a lot of Satanic imagery in his writing. There has to be something sinister or supernatural about it, involving a greater being.” 

Anathema was fairly smart, Crowley realized. She was rather bookish, and odd, and clearly well-versed in her occult studies. Crowley had firsthand practical knowledge, and a sharpness of intelligence about him that one wouldn’t immediately recognize - the ability to think on his feet and a tongue made of razor blades. They continued to debate and discuss Satanism, occult shit, and other forms of dark magic before they seemed to have gotten Agnes’s attention.

She hadn’t really done a whole lot of talking or being present while he and Anathema talked. She came in to fix herself a cup of coffee, not interrupting, and came around later to wash it out, her attention firmly captured when Crowley mentioned something about Ezra’s theological background and opinions.

“You know,” Agnes said. “My mother knew Aleister Crowley.” Crowley looked up and examined her face, raising a brow.

“Personally, I expect.” They both had a chuckle at that, a joke that flew over Anathema’s head.

“Yes, I expect,” she said. Agnes watched Crowley for a beat longer than necessary, perhaps in thought. She laid a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “The deer is easily startled. It takes time to change their minds. January 5th is soon upon us.” Agnes patted Crowley’s shoulder, and was out of the room before Crowley could even process it.

“January 5th?” He glanced over at Anathema, who had taken to grabbing a random sheet of paper to transcribe what Agnes had said.

“She- sometimes says prophecies. She’s never said one that was incorrect.” Anathema folded the piece of paper, and slid it across the table. _The deer is easily startled. It takes time to change their minds. January 5th is soon upon us_ , it read.

“Huh,” he said. “Sounds like a load of shit. I’ll look into it later.” He folded the paper a few more times, and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. “Wonder what January 5th means.” Anathema just shrugged, and they dropped the topic, continuing on talking about Pagan holidays.

When Anathema first met Crowley, he very much seemed to be the type of kid who would be too busy partying and being cool to worry about retaining any academic information whatsoever, but she realized he was intelligent and fairly well-read, even after insisting that he _doesn’t do books._

Anathema thought that he did do books, just in secret. It was a shame, she thought, that they didn’t have any classes together. But Anathema was younger than the two boys, and Crowley wasn’t in Upper Level Literature, so they didn’t exactly have a window of opportunity. 

Crowley left in the early afternoon, saying he had to be home before dinner, and Anathema noticed that instead of heading for his own residence (knowing he didn’t live in that neighborhood), simply headed back to Ezra’s house. He wondered if what Crowley said was a joke, or if he really did consider that to be his own home. Anathema supposed it was a bit of both. Agnes said something about Anathema’s future in the backseat of Crowley’s car with a laugh, and Anathema wrote it down without much thought for it. 

-

The school year was still young. The leaves were changing colors, but not yet falling - it was common for students to be shuffled around from class to class. It wasn’t a huge deal, and it was commonly known that some students were going to disappear within the first few weeks, and others would just appear.

The latter seemed to be the case in Crowley’s calculus class (he didn’t do books, he’d say, but he did do numbers, apparently). For the first three weeks he’d been enjoying not having anybody in the seat next to him, meaning he could spread his shit around and place his bag on the seat. Very few students in any class had this luxury, and this period of calculus seemed to have far more students than any of Crowley’s other classes. 

He walked in on a Wednesday afternoon to see a kid sitting in the seat he’d designated to his bag. He didn’t recognize the student (obviously much younger, must have surpassed credit requirements somehow), so he must have just switched in. Crowley didn’t say anything as he sat down.

“Um, hello,” the kid said. He had dark hair, and glasses. He looked quite bookish. _Ezra might know who you are,_ Crowley thought. Crowley gave him a bored stare.

“Hi,” Crowley responded. 

“I- I’m Newt.” At least he didn’t hold a hand out to shake. “I just transferred into this class. Sorry I took your free desk.” Crowley could respect a man who respected the power and comfort that came with not having somebody sitting next to him. Crowley nodded.

“Crowley.”

“Uh- pardon?”

“Crowley. That’s my name. C-R-O-W-L-E-Y.” He thought he may have intimidated Newt enough with that awkward exchange. The teacher started up class, and Crowley ignored the kid for the rest of the class period. 

What kind of a fucking name was Newt? Who names their kid after a damn amphibian? Yeah, you have a fucking baby, spend nine months carrying it around and 7 hours trying to push it out, the nurse puts it in your arms, and you say, _hey, honey, I think he looks like a fuckin’ salamander._ That should be illegal. Crowley felt bad for Newt. He must get bullied a lot, being named after a slimy lizard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure to leave a comment if there's anything you want to say or see!


	12. Bonfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema decides to meddle. Newt decides not to pry.

Anathema was unsurprised to see a tall figure clad in all black sit himself down beside Ezra at their lunch table for the second day in a row. Anathema didn’t exactly notice him at first (busy talking about runes and how no language is ever truly dead) - as if he just kind of appeared at the table - and almost thought Ezra didn’t notice him until an apple was passed down in front of Crowley.

Their interactions reminded her of a well-oiled machine, running smoothly out of comfort and familiarity rather than practice. She almost stopped talking in order to greet Crowley, but instead wrapped up her idea when Ezra gave her a hand motion to indicate that he was still paying attention. 

“So no, I don’t think Runic is a dead language, unless you consider the fact that every language is doomed to fail - but I think that idea has Biblical roots. Arguably. Did you ever figure out what January 5th was, Crowley?” Now placed directly on the spot, Crowley just shrugged.

“Haven’t even thought about it, honestly, it’s probably just some gibberish.” His nonchalance led Anathema to believe that his procrastination was due to not really wanting to know what it meant, rather than not caring.

“January 5th?” Ezra piped in. 

“Witch girl’s witchy grandmother gave me a prophecy and said something about how ‘January 5th will soon be upon us’. Anathema says all her prophecies are true and important, but I always thought gypsies were rubbish.” Anathema raised her brows, and tilted her head.

“She isn’t a gypsie. She’s a witch. If she were a gypsie, I’d already be married.” Crowley squinted at her face for a long moment. All of a sudden he slapped his hand down onto the table, which startled both Anathema and Ezra.

“Yeah, yeah, right- Ezra, do you know a boy named Newt? Young, witch girl’s age, glasses, dark hair.”

“For _God’s sake Crowley_ \- no, I can’t say I’ve met a boy to that description, why?”

“Took the seat next to me in calc.”

“Please don’t tell me you tried to start a fight with him-”

“Angel, I don’t start a fight with everybody that inconveniences me. For all I know, he’s better at fighting. I’d hate for a 13 year old to make me look a fool.”

“A 13 year old in calculus?” Anathema chimed in. She liked to think she was sharp at math, but she wouldn’t dream of taking calculus that early. Crowley just shrugged, and took a bite of his apple.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, mouth full. Ezra gave him a little disappointed look, so Crowley swallowed before continuing. “Think he said he was new or something. Could have just been to the class, I didn’t really pay a whole lot of attention to him. His name is stupid, though, I’ll give you that-”

“We really don’t need to discuss how ‘stupid’ you think the name Newt is.”

“It’s stupid,” Crowley countered.

“Yes, Crowley. That’s fine. Has your teacher noticed now you’ve been gone all period?”

“Substitute, actually. Told her I was running to get something from another teacher because I missed some homework, I think I’ve got until the end of the hour. Just have to go back in to get my stuff and leave.” Ezra shook his head.

“You’ll get in trouble some day, young man.”

“I’m older than you,” Crowley cocked a brow at Ezra and took another bite of his apple. Anathema pulled out a scrap of paper from her bag. 

“What did you say his name was, Crowley?” she asked, studying what was written.

“Newt. Stupid name, who the hell names their kid after an amphibian? That’s just child abuse. May as well have named him frog, or salamander.”

“Comedy comes in threes, dear,” Ezra added.

“Oh, shut it, I couldn’t think of a third amphibian. Anyway, why do you ask, witchy girl?”

“My name is Anathema. And, no reason,” she put the scrap of paper back in her bag, “maybe you should try to get to know him and tell us about it, Crowley. He could be fun.” 

“Oh, Crowley, please don’t set your friends after him,” Ezra reached out to place a hand on his arm, “they’ll terrorize the poor boy.” Crowley scoffed, and didn’t do anything about the touch on his arm.

“I’ll bring him along to a party or something, see how he does.”

“That’s not any better! I doubt he’d be able to keep his head above water. He’s too young for that, Crowley, stop ruining the youth.”

“You’re just jealous of my ability to ruin the youth. They’re impressionable when they meet people like me, you know.”

“Oh, who cares. Do you have any ideas, Anathema? Crowley has a hard time thinking of things to do that don’t involve alcohol.” She quirked her mouth, really taking a moment to think about it.

“Well, what is there to do around here? You two have certainly lived here longer than I have.” Crowley laughed, leaning onto the table.

“A whole lot of nothing. Kids here get fucked up all the time because there’s nothing better to do.” Ezra nodded solemnly - he’d lived there his whole life. There really was nothing to do short of going to parties and causing property damage (exclusively or at the same time). “Levi’s got that big ass fire pit, though.”

“Crowley-”

“We can throw fireworks in the fire, too-”

“Crowley!” Ezra cut him off. “That is _so_ dangerous! Do not throw fireworks into fires.” Crowley shrugged and rolled his eyes, mocking Ezra under his breath. 

“Kids love explosions,” Crowley weakly defended. He’d already lost.

“Soooo…” Anathema drawled. “Possible bonfire, no fireworks.”

“It’s got fire _in the name,_ ” Crowley added. Both Anathema and Ezra ignored him. 

“You both have the same math class,” Ezra said, “you could offer to give him a hand. He must be struggling, joining three weeks late like that.”

“I’m not going to be nice to him,” Crowley grumbled. 

“Oh, Crowley dear, there’s nothing wrong with being nice, you know.” Ezra put his hand down on top of Crowley’s on impulse. He didn’t exactly register how intimate a gesture it was, and Crowley struggled to keep a straight face. “He does sit next to you, you could just offer. You know the material well enough.”

“Okay, okay- if he _asks._ I know he will, but I will only do it if he asks. Happy?” Ezra smiled, patted Crowley’s hand, and withdrew his touch.

“Yes, I am.” Anathema noticed how often Crowley seemed to ask for Ezra’s approval. She didn’t necessarily want to meddle, but she felt as if, witnessing all of this, it could be meant to be. 

There was more banter between the two before Crowley got up and left, and she and Ezra continued to chat about their own class. 

-

Crowley was always earlier to class than most of the students. His Pop Lit class was just a few doors down, it didn’t take long for him to make the exchange. He almost tossed his bag on the other seat (instinct), but caught himself at the last second. Newt came in just before the bell rang, sitting quietly. 

Newt, Crowley noticed, was quite a nervous fellow. Crowley could sit relatively still and stare at the board while his thoughts drifted, but Newt was always fidgeting about, shuffling his papers, picking at his pen - it was really quite exhausting to watch out of the corner of his eye. Some things you couldn’t ask somebody to stop doing, though. Sniffling? Yes. Tapping a pen? Yes. Kicking your chair? Yes. Fidgeting around, on the other hand, made no sound, and you could not physically feel it. If you closed your eyes, you wouldn’t even notice it. Didn’t mean it wasn’t bothering Crowley. 

He was about two seconds from making a comment about Newt’s inability to sit still before Newt glanced over at Crowley’s paper, and leaned over a bit.

“Uh- excuse me, do you have any idea at all what he’s talking about? I wasn’t here for the other unit,” he mumbled. Crowley rolled his eyes, but spent a few minutes trying to explain it to him while simultaneously trying to keep up with what the teacher was saying. It took far too long for him to explain a simple concept with such a distraction. 

“Listen, just- okay, yeah, that makes no sense, you’re right. I can just teach it to you after school or something.” Newt gave him a nervous look, which was maybe nervous because he wasn’t quite sure if Crowley was going to be a useful tutor to him. Crowley cocked a brow. “I was homeschooled until I was 12, I’m pretty confident in my teaching abilities. Just be glad I’m not charging you anything.”

Crowley turned his head to quickly jot down everything the teacher had down to get his notes up to date. Newt seemed to consider it after doing the same, before shrugging.

“Well, you know more than I do,” he finally accepted. Crowley allowed himself a small smirk, and concentrated on note-taking and zoning out for the rest of class.

When the teacher had stopped talking so everybody could pack up, Crowley shoved everything into his bag and stood. “Local library. It’s warm enough to walk, but I can give you a lift if you really want me to. We’ll just be taking the long way.” Crowley left after that. Newt didn’t think to ask what the long way entailed, but he really would rather get a lift instead of walking, so he hurried after Crowley as he walked outside.

Once the two actually got outside to head to the parking lot, Crowley stopped just outside the doors.

“Are we… waiting for somebody?” Newt stepped over to the side where Crowley was, to get out of the rush.

“Yes, why else would we be standing here?” Newt nodded as if this made perfect sense to him, and waited. None of this made any sense. He had no idea who they were waiting for, or why. 

A boy wearing a taupe sweater vest and khakis seemed to be who they were waiting for. Crowley stepped out to greet him, letting Newt trail behind as Crowley caught up to the blond boy.

“Oh- is this the boy you were talking about earlier, Crowley?”

“Yeah, guess so. Newt, Ezra. Ezra, Newt.” Ezra dropped back a bit, offering his hand out to shake. Newt took it, and, well, shook.

“Hi, Ezra,” Newt said a little awkwardly.

“Pleasure! Crowley mentioned you’d entered his calculus class. I take it he’s going to be tutoring you a bit?”

“Oh- well, yes, we’re heading to the library.”

“I’m bringing you home, first, angel,” Crowley added.

“How wonderful, thank you, Crowley.” Ezra beamed up at the taller boy, and Crowley just shrugged. 

Newt, upon seeing the car Crowley was driving, sent a silent prayer that the thing would even start up. The two older boys chatted along as they walked, leaving Newt to get into the back before they sped off (not without Ezra dramatically chastising Crowley for going so fast while there were other people in the car). 

He stayed quiet through the car ride, and looked away when Crowley and Ezra said goodbye to each other. With the way they were looking at each other, it was as if they’d never see each other again. Some 80s rock music played in the background as Crowley and Newt settled into an unfamiliar quiet. Not necessarily uncomfortable, but the kind of quiet you settle into when you’re with somebody you hardly know.

Newt wondered how long they’d been together. Probably a while, since they seemed so close. He didn’t ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hip hip for 30,000 words! 
> 
> ALSO: I'm turning this work into a series. There will only be one other work in the series, and it will be a few chapters (probably no more than 4 or 5) on Gabriel and Beelzebub. I won't start it until I'm done with this, though.
> 
> Leave a comment if there's anything you'd like to see or say!


	13. Operation Twelfth Night (Or What You Will)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt is introduced to Anathema. The four are friends. Newt and Anathema decide they need to get Crowley and Ezra to realize (and admit) their feelings to each other.

It was the third day in a row Crowley had skipped class to sit in on Ezra and Anathema’s talk. He’d come a little bit early, too early to interrupt, so he sat quietly and listened to the input from both sides.

Anathema would have felt bad for not including him if he looked to be even a little bored - but she noticed Crowley looked perfectly content (happy, even) listening to them discuss things. Truth was, he enjoyed the conversation topic; however, he didn’t have anything to add, so he stayed quiet and just observed. This observation came in handy when he was the only person to notice that Newt had tentatively approached, and was waiting (nervously) for somebody to notice him. He gave an uncomfortable wave when Crowley turned his head to look at him. 

“I only offer tutoring after class,” Crowley said. Newt awkwardly chuckled, but the laugh died in his throat when he realized Crowley wasn’t joking. Newt cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck when he realized both Ezra and Anathema were also looking at him.

“Uh, no, I was- just saying hi. I don’t really have any friends here, so…”

“Oh, well, please take a seat!” Ezra gestured, smiling at Newt. Anathema gave Ezra a look, and Crowley responded for him.

“Witch girl, this is math boy.”

“Uh- Newt, was it? Crowley, you’ve really got to start learning names,” Anathema turned, brushed her hair out of her face, offering a hand out to Newt to shake with a smile. “I’m Anathema Device. Family name, I don’t expect you to know how to spell it. Nice to meet you, Newt.”

Newt seemed a little overwhelmed, but smiled and shook her hand. “Yeah- hi, Anathema. I’m Newt.” Crowley, who knew both their names and was just bullying them, looked over at Ezra. They shared the same expression, and their eye contact communicated quite a bit.

Crowley’s being, _God, thirteen year olds and their crushes are so annoying._

Ezra’s being, _oh, young love! They would be positively wonderful together._

Crowley rolled his eyes, and stuck his tongue out. 

“Crowley, I didn’t know you had this lunch period. I thought you were in-” Newt was interrupted by Crowley.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m skipping class right now.” He rested his face in his palm, hardly moving when Ezra nudged him. “And Ezra hates it.” Newt smiled politely, and nodded.

“Well, that’s… nice of you to skip class for him,” Newt attempted. Ezra sounded like he choked on his spit (because that’s exactly what he did), and Crowley just cocked a brow.

“Nice? What do you mean by that?” Newt, suddenly, was placed entirely and squarely On The Spot. He sputtered a second, rolling his hands.

“You know, it’s just- a. It’s just, it’s… _sweet?_ ” The look on Crowley’s face led him to believe this was not the correct word. “...Kind? R- _romantic?”_

Newt had never experienced such utter and total social discomfort. Ezra’s face was possibly a brighter pink than his was as he cleared his throat and averted his gaze. Newt had never seen Crowley’s eyes, but if looks could kill, he’d be a bloody smear on the tile. Anathema was giving him a slightly confused, slightly offended, and slightly urgent look. If looks could kill, he’d beg Crowley to smite him on the spot. 

After a pause that seemed to stretch on for decades (it was five seconds), Crowley burst into laughter, slapping his hand on the table. Newt wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. He uncomfortably laughed along, maybe twice, before the look on Anathema and Ezra’s faces made him stop. 

_”Crowley,”_ Ezra pleaded.

“What? I’m having fun! What did he expect, that I was going to go _easy_ on him? It’s so easy, angel, I don’t even have to say anything!” Newt decided it made it worse. 

“Look at him, dear, he’s mortified.” Ezra gestured to Newt. This gesture did not help. Anathema put her hand on his, under the table, perhaps for comfort. Perhaps this had also happened to her, and it was just some kind of fucked up hazing ritual. It helped.

“That’s the point, Ezra, you wouldn’t get it. Come on, it’s just how it works. It happened to me when I was - well, I was younger than him, but that’s the point.” Ezra sighed, and shook his head, placing an apple down in front of Crowley. 

“Well, now that you’ve gotten it out of your system- if you do it again, I’ll be angry.” Ezra had taken on a soft, yet stern tone of voice.

“And do what, drag me to church?” Crowley tested, taking a bite of the apple. Ezra looked over at him, expression neutral.

“Anthony.” Crowley’s eyebrows shot up, and he shrugged, thoroughly complacent.

“Okay- okay, fine.”

Witnessing this was like being in a sitcom, or something. Maybe a show that was partially comedy with some plot. It was surreal. He looked down when something nudged his leg, and he looked down to see Anathema with a piece of paper. He took it.

_They’re not actually dating. Not yet. They’re in denial._

Below this was a phone number. Newt folded it up, and shoved it in his pocket. He wondered how they weren’t together. They certainly acted like a very comfortable couple. 

During his calculus class (the last class of the day), Crowley was fine to him. He was a little more familiar than his usual aloof coldness, so Newt took that to mean that Crowley felt he’d properly established dominance and was going to be nice to him. Which, he was, to an extent. For Crowley, he was being quite nice, which was neutral by any other terms (unless you were Ezra. Newt didn’t know how Crowley treated Ezra behind closed doors, but he knew he was probably very nice to him). 

They had the same schedule of Crowley taking Ezra home and then going over the day’s notes after school. This session was much shorter, with much less material to cover. It was almost pleasant, Newt thought. Almost. 

The four settled into an uneasy rhythm and schedule. Crowley still had his friends, but he could now spend much less time with them. At this point he only hung out with them for booze and parties, anyway (which were happening far less now that it was cold out). Crowley would often have some coffee at Anathema’s and talk about the occult, tutor Newt after school, and spend any other time he had at Ezra’s. He knew Anathema and Ezra spent time together, and he definitely knew Newt and Anathema spent time together at any other time. It was a pleasant schedule for everybody once they worked all the kinks out. 

One fateful day Newt and Anathema were sitting at Anathema’s kitchen table, Newt sipping from a glass of water while Anathema talked about Ezra and Crowley. She was venting, really - bordering on complaining. 

“And they just walk around acting like nobody else sees it! I mean, you were convinced - I was, too. I even asked Ezra _how long they’d been together_ \- I thought I was going to have to Heimlich him. It was embarrassing, he was startled. But the most important part is the fact that he’s startled every time! It’s like he’s ashamed. That’s how you know Ezra likes Crowley - he fears Crowley’s rejection of the concept of a relationship, because to him, that’s the closest he’ll ever get to a relationship!” 

Newt nodded. He blew a little bubble in his water.

“Anyway- we need to get them together somehow. I don’t know how we’re going to do that, since they’re both stupid, but I need your help.” Newt cocked a brow.

“You need my help with their relationship?”

“I know it sounds bad. Everything sounds bad if you word it a certain way. I need your help in getting them to finally get together.”

“So,” Newt started, “you need my help getting them to hook up.”

“That’s a perfect example of everything sounding bad from some perspective. Yes, I do. Got any ideas?” Newt actually seriously considered this. Anathema was looking at him inquisitively, and Newt looked back at her. 

They both got a little distracted looking at each other. Newt averted his eyes, taking a sip of his water. 

“Doesn’t Crowley go to a lot of parties? What if we got Ezra to go with him?” Anathema thought this over for a moment. 

“I think they’ve already done that. I remember Ezra mentioning it one time, but nothing happened.” 

“Well,” Newt drew a finger around the rim of his glass, more in a fidgety fashion than anything that could be considered remotely flirtatious, because he wasn’t even trying, “you could go with them,” he concluded. Anathema tilted her head.

“Just me? Why not you?” Newt shifted.

“Well, I’ve never been to a party. I think I’m kind of lame, I probably wouldn’t be-” he was cut off with Anathema laughing lightly. Nothing as brash or offensive as Crowley whenever he laughed - Anathema’s was light, and genuinely amused.

“Come on, if I’m going, you’re going.” She reached over the table to take his hand. “I haven’t been to any parties either, if that helps.” Her only excuse was that Crowley tried to invite her once, but Ezra scolded him for trying to bring her due to the fact that she was ‘just a girl’. Knowing Ezra, it was a comment on her age, and not at all her gender or social status. She briefly remembered when Crowley suggested bringing Newt to one, and promptly got the idea shot down by Ezra.

Anathema cocked a brow, and lilted her lips. “So?”

Newt shrugged, and then sighed. “Okay, I’ll go.” Anathema smiled.

“Now we just have to get invited.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally created an outline and an ending to this story, but I might tweak it around! If you see the final number of chapters change, that's why.


	14. January 5th, Or Whatever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra offers to read a book to Crowley, who has other things to worry about. Crowley and Anathema talk.
> 
> Operation Twelfth Night is a go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a more filler-y chapter than the next ones, but it was a lot of fun to write and I'm so excited to post the next chapters!

Crowley was laying down on the floor of Ezra’s bedroom, hands tucked behind his head. Ezra was sitting in his desk chair, listening to Crowley complain about reading Shakespeare in his literature class.

“The name of the class is popular literature, Ezra. What about this bloody book is popular? I understand that Shakespeare is Earth’s bestselling author, but come on. We could have at least done Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, I’ve already read those. Not the most exciting read, but it’s better than _this._ ” Crowley dramatically tossed the book to the side, and Ezra leaned over to pick it up.

_Twelfth Night, Or What You Will._

“Crowley, you just don’t want to do any reading. Come on, this is one of the funny ones, I know you can understand Shakespearian.” Crowley just groaned, rubbing his face.

“Can’t you just read it for me? Just tell me what happens, I’ll do the rest.”

“I’ve already read it, dear. How about I read it to you? It’s easier to understand the lines when they’re spoken,” Ezra suggested. Crowley paused to think about it.

“Okay, fine. Sure.”

“See? Not difficult. Just be thankful you don’t have the folio here, it’d make it a lot harder.”

“Yes, yes, just get on with it.” Crowley sat up and scooted himself back, resting his back against a leg of Ezra’s desk.

“Okay! So, in this scene Curio is at a party. His duke asks him if he’s hunting hart - spelled with an a - which was another word for deer back then. Curio says he’s hunting heart, as he’s fallen in love with the Countess Olivia. It was a common pun to say you were hunting deer when you’ve fallen in love.” Crowley nodded. Ezra started reading the lines off, stopping to explain anything that needed it.

Surprisingly, it took Crowley all of five minutes to remember the prophecy given to him by Miss Nutter.

_Deer are easily startled. It takes patience to change their minds._

The heart is easily startled. It takes time to change its mind.

Crowley realized that January 5th was the Twelfth Night. Was this the moment Agnes was talking about? When Ezra was reading him Twelfth Night? She said it was “soon upon us”. Maybe she meant actual January 5th. Crowley supposed he’d have to wait and see.

To his dismay, the two were called down for dinner shortly after (having only gotten through a few paragraphs which Crowley wasn’t paying attention to anyway). After dinner, Crowley had plans with Anathema, and he had just the topic to discuss with her. Dinner, as always, was lovely, but he didn’t pay attention to it. He said goodbye to Ezra and his mother, setting off down the street.

Anathema answered the door, and Crowley couldn’t stop himself.

“I figured out what your grandma’s stupid prophecy was. I don’t know what it all means. Is she home right now?” Anathema looked bemused for a moment, but let Crowley inside once she pulled herself together.

“No, she’s out. What did it mean?”

“You ever heard of Twelfth Night by Shakespeare?” It didn’t take terribly long to explain the deer metaphor to her, but the hard part was explaining his feelings for Ezra.

He sat with his hands around a hot cup of coffee (Anathema was drinking water, not wanting caffeine so late at night), trying to rationalize everything.

“So, you… don’t think he’d be upset? Or you would?” Anathema asked, genuinely confused.

“That’s the problem. He was raised Christian - the closest he’s ever gotten to that is, like, a friend of mine liking girls. He doesn’t even like her all that much, I don’t think. I don’t know his opinion on that kind of stuff - he’ll probably be disgusted. But,”

“But?” Anathema repeated.

“But, you know him. He couldn’t be judgemental if he went to _law school._ ” Crowley took a sip of his too-hot coffee once he finished speaking.

“Have you tried asking him? Or bringing it up in conversation? Obviously, he’ll never notice your advances if he thinks you don’t like men,” she pointed out.

“There’s no way he hasn’t noticed. There’s no way.”

“Well,” she started, thinking it over. “You could take him to a party. Liquid courage and all that.” Crowley barked out a laugh.

“Tried that. Turns out I wasn’t sloshed enough, I backed out at the last second and then got cockblocked by Dagon. I mean, I almost _kissed him._ ”

“You could try again? I’m not saying get more drunk this time, or get drunk at all - but you never know. Now you know what might happen. Is anybody you know planning on throwing a Christmas party?” Crowley watched Anathema’s face for a long moment. Sometimes he was angry that she was so fucking smart and he wasn’t. He sighed, rubbing at his chin.

“Probably. I’ll ask around - maybe I can strongarm somebody into doing something. Levi’s got a big ass house… might not go over well.”

“Why wouldn’t that go over well? Will his parents get in the way?” Crowley shook his head.

“He just dumped his girlfriend. If it’s there, she and her friends are going to come - because everybody’s going to be coming - and they’ll probably start shit.” Crowley waved his hand as he explained it.

“Well, that doesn’t affect you, does it? Since everybody’s going to be there, that’s only a small amount of drama, right?” Crowley snorted, shrugged, and brushed his hair back with a hand.

“I’ll look into it. If nothing happens recently - he seems pretty set on reading that play to me - then I’ll get him to throw something. No guarantee anything will work out, since it didn’t work out last time.” Crowley pointed a finger in Anathema’s direction, and she smiled.

“You should bring Newt and I. We’ll make sure things go as planned. Plus, we’re not stupid enough to get drunk.” Crowley supposed she had a fair point. He thought it over.

“Ezra would never let me invite you two. Too young. You two are practically children.”

“Come on! He’s gotten to know us better recently, can’t you just try? Give him those begging eyes he always gives you when he wants something.” Crowley made a little ‘ngk’ noise.

“It only works when he does it. It’s never worked on him,” he argued.

“When was the last time you actually tried?” Anathema said. He actually had to think about that for a moment.

“Few years ago, maybe. I asked him to do my homework for me and he said no. Begged and everything. That was-” Crowley paused. He was staring into his coffee cup, lost in thought for a few seconds as he re-lived a memory. Anathema thought maybe she should ask, but Crowley twisted his mouth, and she thought against it. “That was years ago, actually. We were younger than you are. That was a few months after we met.”

“So, it could work now,” she made sure to go about the issue a little more gently now. “You just have to try.” Crowley didn’t respond. He was still looking at his coffee, and Anathema realized he still wasn’t back yet.

“Crowley?” She asked softly. “What are you thinking about?” He looked up when he heard his name, presumably back in reality now.

“Not important-”

“I’m not letting you brush this off,” she pressed. Crowley wasn’t used to people pressing. Ezra never pressed. He learned not to. He supposed that was more due to Ezra’s personality than Crowley’s.

“He’s- it’s a long story, really. I don’t want to tell it. I doubt he even remembers it.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t say it, Crowley,” Anathema continued. Crowley was back to looking at his coffee, a little disdainful now.

“I climbed up on his roof and climbed into his room at like 10 pm one night when we were 12. He let me in, obviously.” Crowley very pointedly did not look at Anathema’s expression. “I couldn’t go anywhere else. Didn’t have anywhere else to go. Couldn’t go home, didn’t know anybody else, snow on the ground. He let me in and didn’t ask any questions.” Crowley took a sip of his coffee, quiet now.

“I don’t think you should be doubting whether or not he loves you. Romantic or not, he’s loved you since the beginning. You two are already like family. If you looked alike, you’d be like twins.” Crowley just shrugged. Anathema didn’t ask why he had nowhere else to go - but she knew he still didn’t. He hadn’t heard of that boy spending a single night in his own bedroom, and the concept of Crowley being in his own house was a little odd to her.

They steeped in silence for a few moments, just to take in the moment, before Anathema shifted a bit.

“Right, well. I think you’ve got a good chance. Keep an eye out for anything while he’s reading stories to you.” She smiled at Crowley, and winked. He just let out a chuff.

“Whatever you say, witch girl.”

“My name’s Anathema,” she said.

“I know,” he responded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so, so much for the overwhelming support for this work in the past few days. It means so much to me.
> 
> By the way - I have the rest of the chapters written, and they'll be rolling out in the next few days. I really, really do hope you'll enjoy them.
> 
> Leave a comment if there's anything you'd like to say or see!


	15. I Change My Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends.
> 
> Anathema discovers that you can choose your family if you damn well please. There's a family outing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually meant to be the next chapter, but I was halfway through a scene and realized I either had to cut the whole first half where Crowley gets home or split it up into two chapters. So, I split it up. If I didn't, this chapter would be about 6k words long.

Crowley discovered over the span of a month that he could listen to Ezra read him Shakespeare all day long. Crowley didn’t much like the tragedies, but he could stomach it if it was coming from Ezra’s mouth.

For more than a month he’d sit in Ezra’s bedroom, listening to him talk, read, explain the notes, detail the scenes before he jumped into them. _Twelfth Night_ became something very sentimental to Crowley very quickly, for the only reason that Ezra made it so.

He supposed that’s what made anything else sentimental. Memories, or other people. The end of the story perplexed Crowley, so they often sat around and discussed it, half because he liked talking about it and half because he really, really loved listening to Ezra talk. He had a gorgeous voice, Crowley thought.

As the holiday season rolled around each year, Crowley usually stayed away from Ezra's house (the holidays were a family function, after all). Any other year he would lock himself in his room, or go to anybody else’s house - but this year, he stayed in London with his mother. Crowley quite liked his mum, and the holidays were fun for the first time since he was a kid. It wasn’t the same childlike wonder, but nice nonetheless.

The trip made him miss plenty of school, but Ezra knew where he was (and was under instruction not to tell anybody precisely where he was). Whenever Newt and Anathema asked where Crowley was, he’d always just reply, “Crowley’s gone back to London for the holidays”. The use of the word ‘back’ was a cause of interest for both of them.

Ezra failed to consider the fact that they didn’t know Crowley had ever come from London, and he couldn’t just tell that story without Crowley there to expunge details as necessary. The week before school got out involved a lot of Ezra refusing to answer questions, which raised more questions on account of it being so uncharacteristic for him.

When Ezra exasperatedly told Crowley about it on the phone, Crowley almost hacked up a lung laughing about it. From then on, Ezra simply said he wasn’t under any authority to say, and they’d just have to ask Crowley when he got back.

To make up for it, Crowley let Ezra speak with his mother on the phone, albeit briefly. Ezra noted that she sounded exactly like him, just more feminine, obviously. She had that same rough casualty of voice that Crowley constantly had. She gushed about how Crowley was always talking about him, how they must be very good friends, and she told Ezra about how glad she was that he was “taking him in, away from that rat bastard-” when she got cut off by Crowley (presumably) shooing her away from the phone. Ezra thought she must be nice.

It was January the 3rd when Crowley got back from London, and the first stop he made back in town was (obviously) at Ezra’s house. Ezra knew when he’d be getting back (by extension, so did Anathema - Ezra’s “replacement best friend” now that Crowley was gone, as Anathema liked to put it).

When the shitty beater car rolled up into his driveway and Crowley got out, Ezra almost slipped on the ice in his driveway barreling out to give him a big hug. Crowley laughed, hugged back, and rubbed a gloved hand into Ezra’s hair. When Anathema stepped out next, he pulled away from Ezra, perhaps mentally cataloguing the brief slip in facade to allow him a moment of affection with Ezra (and when Crowley did pull away, Ezra kept an arm around him).

“What’s she doing in my house?” Crowley said, as he gestured at Anathema. Ezra rolled his eyes.

“You don’t even live here.”

“Then tell me why your mother claimed me on her tax returns.” Ezra stuck his tongue out at the response, and Crowley shoved his hand into Ezra’s face so he got a good taste of his glove.

“So, where’d you disappear to for two weeks?” Anathema asked, hands in the pockets of her dress.

“London, didn’t Ezra tell you?”

“He did, but we want to know why you went. Ezra was making it very suspicious.” Ezra scoffed, and Crowley laughed.

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know. Did I miss any fights at school?” Ezra took Crowley’s arm, bringing the both of them in after Anathema so they could get out of the cold.

“You have a lot of faith of your peers, Crowley, thinking they’re as scrappy as you are,” Ezra responded as he took his coat off.

“High expectations are not faith, angel. Did you happen to be holding Newt in your basement, too?”

“He already went home, actually,” Anathema said. “You just missed him. He said he had to get home for something.”

“Shame,” Crowley said, hanging his coat up. Anathema watched as Crowley greeted Ezra’s mother with a hug, as a son might to his own mother. They exchanged the normal “how was your trip” “oh it was fine” “how’re the roads” “rubbish” pleasantries, while Ezra got some tea going.

Anathema had been over to Ezra’s in the past, especially over the past two weeks in Crowley’s absence, but she’d never been around to witness the fact that nobody was joking when they said Crowley lived there. He truly was a part of the household, just not necessarily the family. Not yet, at least - maybe he’d have a shot at becoming an in-law, Anathema hoped. She almost asked if Crowley might want to unpack at home before she came to this discovery. Crowley was at home right now, and would most likely leave his things in his car. Perhaps for days, until he went back to where he lived.

It put Anathema outside of her comfort zone. She saw herself as a guest here in this country, in this town - even in her grandmother’s home. She could see that Crowley, a boy from London with no discernable family, was able to build one for himself. She supposed he had to start somewhere, and if he could do it, she could, too.

“Anathema, could you get the cream out? It’s just in the door of the fridge,” Ezra called as he got to make four cups of tea. The fourth for his mother, presumably - who spent plenty of time in the sitting room reading books or papers or magazines. He could tell Ezra really was his mother’s son, with his affinity for reading material.

Anathema nodded, and got the cream out, setting it on the counter. Ezra gave her a “thank you” as he fixed each cup. By now, Crowley was talking about the drivers in London and how awful they were, especially with so much ice on the roads. Anathema didn’t know there could be ice on roads. Especially not ice you can’t see.

She was born and raised in California. This was her first time experiencing winter, truly.

“You know, dear, maybe if you didn’t go 75 in central London, you wouldn’t skid around just so much.”

“I don’t see you with a driver’s license, angel, shut it. I’ll go as fast or as slow as I want to.”

“And how many traffic tickets did you get on your trip?” Ezra looked smug, and Crowley ceased to look smug. Anathema truly didn’t appreciate their dynamic or how much they used pet names with each other when she first met them.

“Anathema, how do you like your tea?”

“Oh, um- cream and sugar, please.” Anathema also didn’t appreciate how much Ezra called Crowley ‘dear’. She’d heard it so much, she almost thought Ezra was angry at her when he stopped saying it.

Ezra gave her a look, raising a brow as if he was expecting more.

“Just put in the regular amount, Ezra. She clearly doesn’t know what you want from her.”

“Oh, dear, was that culturally insensitive?” He soon put down a cup of tea in front of her, with far too much cream and not nearly enough sugar. It singed her tongue when she tasted it, as well. She would learn to live with it.

“Culturally insensitive? No, I’m just used to coffee culture. We have tea in America, you know,” she explained. “I just didn’t drink it very often.” Crowley shook his head gravely.

“You’ve got a lot to learn, young lady.” Anathema thought he deserved the shove Ezra gave him. When shoved, Crowley gave a questioning look to Ezra, before the latter boy backed off. Anathema hoped they didn’t throw down in his kitchen.

“Newt would probably like to see you,” Anathema said to steer this situation away from two almost adult boys wrestling in the presence of hot burners and boiling water. “I should let him know you’re back already.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. You lot’ll get a nasty surprise when we go off to uni.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to college,” Ezra inquired. Crowley waved his hand.

“‘S complicated. I should call Levi about that party later. Two days from now, right? The 5th? Sounds right.”

The trio sat around and discussed tea, coffee, which was better, whether or not they were soups (courtesy of Crowley), which dissolved into a rather heated debate of what constituted a soup, broth, and stew. Crowley won the argument by saying coffee and tea was a stock, rather than any of those things. Nobody knew the proper definition of a stock compared to a soup or broth, so nobody argued with him.

The topic was brought up again when Newt joined later in the afternoon, who agreed with Crowley, to Ezra and Anathema’s horror and despair. The four played cards until Anathema and Newt’s curfew, and Crowley agreed to drive Newt home. It was the first time he’d done such a thing, and Crowley discovered Newt lived in the same low-class neighborhood as he did.

Neither one brought it up. Newt possibly out of shame at the fact that he lived there, and Crowley out of the same shame that he, too, lived there. He’d bring it up eventually, just so the kid wasn’t uncomfortable about it any more. He knew it sucked.

He went back to Ezra’s house after that. They discussed the party, further entertained the arguments of whether or not to bring some 14 year olds to a party, before Crowley argued that he’d been going to parties at their age, and if you were smart you’d be fine. Ezra wanted to bring up the event of Crowley blacking out, but he resisted. Crowley was much older than those kids, anyway. Anathema and Newt seemed smart enough to handle themselves.

Crowley told plenty of stories from London to entertain Ezra, and he let Ezra tell long-winded and truly unnecessary stories about what had happened while Crowley was gone. Nothing had happened, but nothingness had never sounded so sweet coming from Ezra’s mouth. They both went to bed after that.

It had never happened before that all four of them were in Crowley’s car at the same time. Ezra, as always, got shotgun, and Anathema would have been upset if he didn’t rightfully own the seat. Anathema and Newt sat in the backseat, complaining about the taste of music. Crowley threatened to make them walk, which was taken as a joke until he pulled over and unlocked the doors.

Usually Crowley would have just walked, but a myriad of things was preventing him from that. He was responsible for two pubescents, Levi lived in a separate neighborhood (a gated community - the houses were all massive and expensive), and it was very cold out. So, he cleaned his car out, and they all went.

This was all very stressful for Crowley, seeing as he now had to tell himself to stay sober enough to drive them _somewhere_ after the party, being the only one legally able to drive. Plus, he’d never actually driven while drunk before - tipsy, sure, but this was certainly going to be an interesting experience.

Once they got into the neighborhood, looking at the houses was certainly interesting for the four of them. Looking in his rearview, he could tell Newt looked in awe. Anathema looked somewhat unbothered.

“No kind of money like small town money,” Crowley commented as he passed by a BMW.

“Guess we’ll get to see how the other half live tonight.” Ezra was fairly wealthy - after all, he lived a comfortable life. This was just _lavish._ He’d learned from people he’d met at church that these houses go for twice as much as his did - it boggled his mind to think people actually lived in them.

“That just means the quality of free booze goes up, angel. This is our break into rooftop parties and complementary champagne.” The two laughed a bit. Anathema stayed quiet. This was pocket change compared to her childhood home, after all. She almost felt bad. Almost.

“Seems like a neighborhood that’ll call the cops on a party,” Newt mentioned. Crowley knew firsthand that lower income areas would put up with a party - if everybody else was getting drunk, why couldn’t some teens throw on some music while they did?

“I’ve never had a party busted while I was in it, trust me.” He started checking the house numbers as he drove past, just to be sure they got to the right place. “So who’s the best at driving out of you three? If I blow more than a 1.0, we’re all fucked, so I need a backup DD.” Ezra pointedly looked away. He wasn’t a bad driver by any means, but he wouldn’t condone drinking and driving - if he was driving, he couldn’t be drinking.

“Can’t you drive, Newt?” Anathema cut in. Newt shrugged in a manner that was perhaps much too forcibly humble for a newly turned 14 year old who knew the basics of operating a vehicle. That, however, was very different from knowing road laws.

“Well, my mom taught me how to use the car, but-”

“Great!” Crowley decided. “If I get too drunk, Newt drives. Newt won’t be drinking, so a plan C isn’t necessary. Glad to have that decided.” Crowley pulled up to the side of the road, thought twice, and parked on the lawn.

Anathema and Newt were sticking fairly close together as they both headed up the front walk. Neither of them had ever been to a real actual movie-scene party before, and both were quite nervous. Newt, because he was afraid of messing things up, and Anathema because she simply didn’t know what to expect. Crowley seemed to be in his natural habitat, but she saw Ezra had a grip on his arm that suggested he wasn’t too good at this kind of thing, either.

When they stepped through the front door, Anathema was a bit taken aback at how quiet it was. She expected loud music, bustling crowds - instead she was met with a mostly empty foyer (there was a group of friends sitting around talking) and low-toned 80s synth pop. Crowley made his way through the front room, and Anathema got the introduction to parties she’d always wanted.

The living room seemed to be the epicenter, which spilled over into the kitchen. The music still wasn’t a whole lot louder, but she could rest easy knowing she could hear herself think and other people talking. She took one moment to scan the living room and the crowd, before realizing she’d lost Crowley and Ezra. A moment later she felt a hand on her arm, and turned to see Newt.

“Where did the boys run off to? “ She only had to raise her voice a little bit over the crowd noise, thankfully.

“They went to get drinks, some girl started talking to them,” Newt pointed out to the kitchen. “Want to go downstairs?” Somewhere in the crowd, there was the loud laughter of some girl clearly intending to get laid. She only heard the word “downstairs”, but this was enough for her to pull meaning. She nodded and took Newt’s arm, carefully navigating the crowd.

Crowley was busy in the kitchen deciding which cheap booze he wanted to drink. He pointed out some tequila to Ezra, which earned him a swat on the arm. He settled on some Seagram’s.

“Is there a bottle opener around here?” Ezra asked, as he received a bottle. Mere seconds after the words heft his mouth, Crowley struck the top of his bottle against the counter, and the cap went flying. He only spilled a little bit of his drink.

“Who needs bottle openers when you have a good arm and intuition?” He cocked a brow, lifting the rim to his lips.

“I’m not letting you do that.” He set his bottle on the counter, starting to look around. “If you get broken glass everywhere, I will make you clean it up, before somebody cuts themselves!” Crowley rolled his eyes.

“Fine, grab a spoon, I’ll get it for you-”

“Well if it isn’t Tony!” Crowley’s good mood was instantly soured as he heard the sharp voice of Dagon. “What kinds of trouble are we making today?”

“The kind that gets you narc'd on.” Crowley took the bottle from Ezra, using the spoon and the counter as leverage as an impromptu bottle opener. It only took a little bit of elbow grease before the cap flicked off, the liquid fizzling up the neck of the bottle. Dagon made some unimportant gesture.

“Well, speaking of narcs, I’ve got a little surprise for you upstairs-”

“Dagon, that is-”

“If it were me, I’d have a hell of a time explaining that to my girlfriend, just shut up and come with me. Ezra, can you manage for a second without burning the house down? Not accusing, just checking.” Ezra seemed conflicted for a moment, before conceding.

“Of course I can, I’ll go and check on the other two, I think they went downstairs. I’ll be down there when you get back.” Ezra brushed a hand over Crowley’s arm. He almost moved to pat it, before realizing that was a bit… fraternal, and maybe even a little fatherly. Crowley nodded, and followed Dagon into the crowd.

Ezra looked back at the drink table. After a few moments of internal debate, he grabbed a couple wine coolers before he headed downstairs to track down Anathema and Newt. He knew Crowley wouldn’t disapprove (in fact maybe he’d even crack a joke about how much of an awful influence he was), but he mostly wanted to avoid the inevitable Crowley calling him a hypocrite.

The downstairs was furnished - like a whole other living area (with a kitchenette area). There were less people down there, mostly people who came for the booze and fun and not the hectic crowds. Anathema and Newt were situated on a sofa, and Ezra headed over to sit down to Anathema’s side.

“What’re those, Ezra? Is that alcohol I see?” Anathema cheekily observed.

“Okay- I know what I said.” He set the two tins on the table in front of them. “Just because I’m doing this does _not_ mean I am condoning you two getting drunk. It’s just nice to have a little fun sometimes, why should you two miss out?” Anathema smiled sweetly and grabbed one for herself, handing the other to Newt.

“That’s very kind of you, Ezra, thank you. Where’s Crowley?” Anathema watched as Newt cracked the tab off and cautiously took a sip. He was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t as bitter or awful as most other alcohol.

“One of his friends took him upstairs for something. So, he could be gone for an hour, and he could sneak up behind us any minute now. It’s a little hard to tell with them.” He sounded a little nervous as he spoke. Ezra always sounded nervous when he spoke, but this was overt and direct.

“May as well be friendly with the host,” Anathema said, taking a sip of her own drink. It was artificially sweet with an undertone of alcohol that was hard to miss, but it wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever drank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit:  
> I made a twitter for my writing! Follow @bitch_ohmygod on Twitter for updates on this story, anything else i'm working on, or just fandom-related stuff! Feel free to contact me there, too!


	16. Dichotomy of Then and Now (Or, More Accurately, Me and You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Ezra bring Newt and Anathema to a party. They have fun, but it's probably the worst night Ezra's ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels correct to post this on the same day as the previous chapter.

Crowley was being quite friendly with the host. Dagon was good friends with Levi, and helped throw the party, so she was technically by extension a host. Currently he was sitting in an upstairs bedroom, positioned on the edge of the bed as Dagon and some girl (presumably her girlfriend) sat at a table with a glass panel on it. Matt was also present, but he was laying on the bed behind Crowley. Crowley decided that he was probably stoned as fuck, and only partially conscious.

“What did you drag me upstairs for, again?” Crowley asked.

“You didn’t hear this from me, but Lucy got these for us.” Dagon took the other girl’s purse from the table, digging around before pulling out a little plastic bag with a few pills in it. Crowley raised a brow.

“Pills? You brought me up here to take pills with you?”

“No!- Well, yes, kind of. They’re safe, though, people take these all the time. It’s not even a high dose,” Dagon argued.

“Okay. What _are_ they? I can’t do stimulants, they drive me crazy.” Crowley crossed his arms and rested them on his knees. Dagon took that statement to mean that he was willing to try these.

“No, they’re not. They drive me crazy, too.” She fished a few pills out of the bag, using a plastic card from some store to break it up on the table. “This’ll mellow you out. It’s like alcohol, but less… drunk. Just gives you all the stuff that makes you less nervous without any of the drinking side effects.” Crowley still looked quite suspicious, and very hesitant. “It’s used to treat anxiety,” Dagon added.

Crowley drummed his fingers against the side of his glass bottle as he considered his options. He could snort that pill and get really fucked up and have Newt drive them home. He could also probably work up the courage to make a move. It was used to treat anxiety, after all.

Or, he could decline, go downstairs, and feel a pang of longing and the most overwhelming feeling of love and anguish every time his hand brushed past Ezra’s.

“It’ll give you confidence,” Dagon said, after watching Crowley consider it. She cut a line, and used a straw to take it. Crushing and snorting pills, Crowley thought, was probably the least classy way to take them. It made them work quicker, though. “I’m not trying to pressure you into anything, Tony,” Dagon said as she wiped her nose. “Take it or leave it, but Lucy brought enough for all of us.”

Crowley shrugged, set his bottle on the nightstand, and headed over. Dagon cut a line and handed the straw to Crowley. Snorting powder was more painful than you’d think it to be. It wasn’t difficult - the movies show you basically everything you need to know - but Crowley was met with a burning in his sinuses and lungs that had him cough a little bit. Dagon just laughed.

“That’ll go away in a sec! Go downstairs and have some fun, lover boy,” she shoved at his shoulder. He sniffed, wiped his nose off with a sleeve, grabbed his bottle, and left.

 _That was fucking stupid,_ he thought. _I don’t even feel anything. That could have been a multivitamin for all I know._

Seeing as karma is, in fact, a bitch, Crowley was halfway down the stairs to the main level when he tripped and stumbled, his head suddenly rolling and spinning. He had to grip onto the railing for dear life and stop as he got his bearings, proceeding carefully. Sure proved him wrong.

The stairs to the basement were a tad more difficult. They were hard, first of all - made of wood. He was wearing shoes, but he knew if he fell he’d have Hell to pay. He eventually got down (only then realizing Ezra, Anathema, and Newt were giving him a weird look for taking the stairs so seriously.) He just waved it off and headed over to the corner they occupied, throwing himself down into an armchair across from them. Ezra sighed.

“Crowley, you’re already drunk.” Crowley rolled his eyes, raising his bottle up to squint at it.

“I haven’t even had one drunk, shut up. I’m jus’ being dramatic,” Crowley half-slurred. He didn’t even argue it. To argue, you first need an argument.

“Well…” Newt took a sip of his drink. “What were you upstairs for?”

“Oh, fuck, just a li- hey, is that alcohol?” Crowley’s face lit up as he saw it, and he straightened in the chair (if that was possible). “Ezra, did you give them _alcohol?_ ” He was grinning now. Ezra huffed indignantly.

“It’s one drink! And it hardly has any alcohol, the most they’ll do is get buzzed. They deserve it.” Crowley just laughed, taking a swig from his bottle. He supposed he shouldn’t drink much on this medication - he could feel every mouthful hit his system.

“Oh wow. This is precious. I’ll have you two know I fought for _weeks_ to get Ezra to even let you go, and he’s _giving you drinks.”_

“Couldn’t be any worse than your first time drinking, dear,” Ezra chided. Crowley looked confused enough to prompt an explanation. “...When you biked to my house in the middle of the night and fell into the roses?”

“That wasn’t my first time drinking,” Crowley said. Ezra looked just as confused as Crowley did.

“Then what was? That was certainly your first time at a party.” Crowley really had to narrow his eyes and think about it through the haze in his mind.

“Fuck ‘f I know. I was their age, though. Think I stole some liquor. Not important.” Crowley waved his hand.

Anathema leaned over to Newt to speak quietly to him.

“I feel like our parents are fighting,” she mumbled. He laughed a little bit under his breath.

"I don't even know what they're arguing about," Newt responded in the same tone.

"I don't think they do, either." This triggered a round of giggles between the two, which Ezra and Crowley failed to notice.

Anathema and Newt, after watching the two banter for a bit, decided to remove themselves and go upstairs for some air (and to hunt down any snacks).

The boys failed to notice, seeing as they were currently discussing how "awful" (Crowley's words) and "extravagant" (Ezra's) the downstairs living area was. They shut up when the host popped into view on the staircase. Crowley waved at Levi, who smiled.

“Crowley, how was London?” Levi seemed to have paused a conversation he had going with a guy he knew to be named Ben, his girlfriend, and some third girl Crowley didn’t recognize. Ezra waved at her, and she waved back to Ezra.

“Oh, y’know. Roads get real nasty during the winter, you’d love it there.” The two boys chuckled a little bit. Ezra looked over to where Anathema and Newt were, quietly mumbling something about how he needed to use the restroom before he excused himself.

“You know, we were going to play beer pong - we were just about to take the table out. Sarah doesn’t want to play, though - be my fourth?” Crowley sighed and leaned forward to put his drink down.

“I prob’ly shouldn’t drink more, ‘m already fucked up.” Crowley moved to push himself to stand up, steadying a hand on the table so he didn’t fall forward.

“ _Already?_ It’s not even midnight, you’re already shitfaced.”

“Oh, as if you haven’t gotten worse off faster than me,” Crowley responded, leaning against the armrest of the chair. Levi just sighed, rubbing his temples.

“Yes, but I never blacked out at a party at 15, that was always you. If you pass out here, I’m not helping you, your friends can figure it out.”

“H- wh- okay, that was one time, and it was your fault-” Levi cut him off before he could finish.

“You drink too much. That’s not my fault. You have a _problem,_ Crowley.”

Crowley could barely hear him condescendingly stress the consonants of the word ‘problem’ before his fist connected with Levi’s face.

Normally, Crowley could win fights against his peers. He was good at fighting, and had a lot of passion for it when it came to defending his honor. Crowley was better at fighting, sure, but Levi had the upper hand of relative sobriety and bigger arms.

Crowley put up a good fight. He was skinnier, all lean muscle - between Levi knocking him around and all the shit in his system, he could hardly tell which way was up. The fight didn’t last terribly long, and Crowley would probably be embarrassed if he could witness it.

Alas, Levi’s knuckles to the side of his head, coupled with the drugs in his brain and the alcohol in his blood was enough to have him knocked clean out. The fight wasn’t extravagant in any kind of way. Crowley got a few hits in, scratched a little bit, but Levi simply had the upper hand. After all, it was self defense.

“Holy shit,” Ben said.

“Fuck,” Levi breathed out. “That kid’s fucking crazy.”

There were only about 8 kids down there witnessing it. Sarah (Sarah Greene, remember her?) was the only one to do anything about it. She stared at Crowley on the ground for a few moments, a nostalgic sight, before she ran upstairs to look around for Ezra.

Ezra was standing by a half-open sliding door. It was much too hot in there and somebody had opened it up (a few people were even standing outside for brief periods of time), and he was just trying to cool off.

He saw a girl look at him, saw recognition on her face, and then he watched as she approached. Black skirt, fishnets, black lipstick.

“Lucy! How are you?” Ezra smiled.

“Hey, stranger,” she smiled back. Her smile held more than just friendly recognition. She stood close to him, looking outside. “What’re you doing alone?”

“Oh, well - Crowley saw-” he shouldn’t mention Levi, “Crowley saw somebody he knew, so I stepped out to give them some time. Just standing here taking a break,” he explained. Lucy giggled, brushing a hand down his chest briefly in a way that could only be construed as quite flirtatious.

"How silly," she said. "Well, we can just stand here and talk. How’ve you been? We haven’t talked since Dagon’s little party.”

“I’ve been just peachy, actually! The holidays were quite nice - they’re always my favorite time of…” he trailed off when Lucy rested herself on him, smiling. Her expression changed a bit when he noticed.

“Oh, sorry-” she pulled away a slight bit with a little laugh. Ezra laughed a bit, too, not quite getting the joke. “Hey, Ezra?”

“Yes, Lucy?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” She drew a finger over his shoulder, really laying it on thick. Ezra had never been so aggressively flirted with. He wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about it, now that it was happening - on the one hand, he didn’t have a girlfriend, and he knew Lucy was recently single and likely not looking for anything serious.

On the other hand, Ezra was a virgin (an anxious one at that) and he really did not want to lose it to Crowley’s friend that he’d only met a few times. God, _Crowley._ He could only imagine how - well, maybe not angry - he’d be something. It wasn’t like they’d never talked about girls. They teased each other about it frequently when they were younger. His face flushed dark as he remembered the dream he’d kept locked away in his subconscious.

“N-no, I don’t suppose I do.” Ezra chuckled a bit, awkwardly. Lucy took the flushed face and nervousness as nervous attraction. She just smiled, leaning her face in close, arm draping languidly around his shoulders. He had no way out of this now, he thought. (It never occurred to him that he could just say no.)

“You think Crowley would notice if you went missing for a little bit?” she mumbled right in his ear, drawing a sharp, manicured fingernail around the shell of his ear.

Ezra had been to parties before. He knew people made out in the open and hooked up in the bedrooms. This was just a fact you had to deal with. He was wildly uncomfortable, however, with the thought of having sex with a girl he hardly knew in her ex boyfriend’s house. He watched as Lucy rubbed a hand over his thigh, and he’d never felt so turned off in his entire life.

“I…” he managed to choke out. Lucy giggled, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Ezra finally pulled away from her, saying something about how he ‘had to go and check on Crowley’ perhaps far too loudly as he stormed off, scrubbing the mark of black lipstick off of his face.

Lucy looked entirely shocked. She honestly would have stopped if he said no, but she thought he was into it.

Anathema and Newt shared a shared look of shock.

“What the hell was _that?”_ Anathema said.

Ezra met Sarah on the staircase to the basement. She was coming up, and he was going down. She looked… pale. And uncomfortable. And afraid. He, no doubt, looked disheveled.

“Oh- Ezra! Hi.” She stopped him, hands on his shoulders to quickly turn him around. “Okay, so, slight problem- I know we only talk when your friend is in trouble. But,” she kept her arm tightly around his shoulders (in a very platonic way) to keep him from turning around. _Oh, God,_ Ezra thought.

“Did he black out?” Ezra asked, weakly.

“Not… not exactly? He- took some pills, I think, and got in a fight with Levi. And Levi knocked him out. He’s okay, though - the fight didn’t go on too long, neither one of them are very roughed up, there’s hardly even any blood-” Sarah could not stop Ezra from wrenching himself out of her grip to turn around and go as quickly as he could down the stairs without slipping.

“That kid’s fucking crazy,” he heard Levi say under his breath. Ezra just shoved his way through, grabbed Crowley by the shoulders, and spent a few moments hauling him up. He could hear steps on the staircase, and a gasp.

“Oh my God,” Newt said. Anathema didn’t say anything. She could tell Ezra was very, very angry, and she didn’t want to stay anything to trigger a possible outburst. Hell hath no fury like the rage of a calm man.

“We’re going home,” Ezra clipped out, “and I’m driving.” Ezra got the keys out of Crowley’s pocket and transferred them to his own, pulling the unconscious boy up onto his shoulders for the second time in his life.

Newt and Anathema didn’t say anything as they followed Ezra outside. Newt opened the passenger door and reclined the seat a bit so Ezra could put him in, and then they all got in.

Ezra had driven this car before. Never further than the confines of his suburb, and never without Crowley right next to him, coaching instructions. He’d never driven on an open road. He’d never driven without somebody who knew how to do it better than him telling him what to do.

Anger, Ezra found, gave one confidence and concentration.

The car was silent as he drove. Anathema’s hand found its way into Newt’s.

“Newt, where do you live?” Ezra’s voice wasn’t as sharp now, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t still cut.

“Uh- down… in Willowbranch,” he said, quietly. Willowbranch, of course, being the name of the neighborhood. Ezra recognized it. Crowley lived there. Well, if he was driving by, he may as well drop both of them off.

Newt told him the house number, and Ezra just nodded.

To his luck, they drove past Crowley’s house first. Ezra recognized the car in the driveway and the clutter in the yard. Newt and Anathema exchanged an expression, both confused about why they were stopping there.

Ezra parked the car, got out, and knocked loudly at the door. A tall, scruffy man with messy dark hair answered the door, and the two could see (but not hear) Ezra and the man having a discussion.

Ezra came back to the car, opened the passenger door, and picked Crowley up. He took Crowley inside, and the man standing by the door squinted at the car. He was disheveled - dirty clothes, messy hair, and stubble that didn’t quite complete the look as much as a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand did.

It was only maybe a few minutes before Ezra came back out, bid goodbye to the man, and got back in the car, pulling away from the curb without a word. The man walked back inside.

They all now knew that Crowley lived there, and the man was most likely his father. Nobody mentioned it. Newt squeezed Anathema’s hand. Anathema squeezed back.

Newt’s house, luckily, was much cleaner and more kept-up. There was even a fresh coat of paint on the outside. Ezra parked the car when he confirmed that this was the correct address, and Newt got out of the car.

He stopped by Anathema’s window, knocked, and then waved goodbye with a smile. Anathema waved back, and she could tell seeing it softened Ezra a little.

They still didn’t talk on the ride home. Ezra wasn’t a bad driver, really - which was probably due to the fact that there weren’t too many people out driving around at that time.

It struck her, suddenly, that this wasn’t even Ezra’s car - she figured it’d make more sense to bring Crowley home with him so Crowley had the car. She supposed maybe Ezra didn’t think about that.

Maybe he was angry at Crowley, but needed an excuse to talk to him.

She didn’t mention it when she said goodnight to Ezra when he parked the car.

“Anathema?”

She stopped with her hand on the door.

“Yes?”

“Anathema, I- I’m so sorry about tonight. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for Crowley, and- I really truly am.” Anathema reached up to rub his arm a bit.

“It’s okay. Things go bad sometimes. If it makes you feel better, Newt and I had fun.” She let her arm stop, remembering what happened by the door. “I’m sorry about that girl.”

“Oh, good Lord- you saw that?” Ezra sputtered, and Anathema smiled a bit.

“The whole thing. I won’t tell anybody, though. I don’t think anybody else noticed.”

“...Thank you. Goodnight, Anathema," Ezra said.

“Goodnight, Ezra.” She got out of the car, and walked up her driveway. She watched from the window of her kitchen as Ezra parked the car in his driveway and went inside.

She, of course, texted Newt about it so they could review how much of a disaster the night was for Crowley and Ezra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: I almost wrote Anathema and Newt out because I couldn't figure how to give them any depth.
> 
> Contact me on Twitter: @bitch_ohmygod ! I'll post story updates there for this fanfiction, and others I'm working on!


	17. Let It Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra is mad at Crowley, but it doesn't last too long. It never does.

When Crowley woke up, every square inch of his body ached. There was a sharp pain in his forehead (definitely the hangover) and a dull, prompt hurt in his face. It took him a few minutes to remember that he didn’t really even get drunk, and he wasn’t hungover. He probably just had a concussion from getting the shit beat out of him.

He flexed his hands, just to be sure he didn’t break anything. They were scraped and bruised, but fine. The light was hitting the side of his face at an angle he wasn’t entirely used to. When he opened his eyes, gray walls and black bed sheets greeted him. He just stared. He knew he’d been knocked out, so somehow he must have gotten home.

He heard a thud, a shout, sharp laughter, and a belligerent yell of _”shut the fuck up you fuckin’ bastards!”_

Home sweet home. The front door slammed shut, and moments later the sound of a car engine. It drove by, down the road, and the house was quiet now. He waited for another moment (just to be sure) before he slowly sat up, groaning audibly with the strain on his sore muscles.

He swung his legs over the bed, intending to get up and get dressed, but a buzzing from his pocket distracted him. He pulled his phone out and answered the call.

“Morning, angel-”

“Come and get your car, Anthony. It’s in my driveway. The keys are in the cup holder.” Ezra spoke quickly, sharply, and ended the call when he was done.

Crowley sat there dumbly for a few moments with the phone still pressed to his ear. Ezra was pissed.

He sighed and stood up, pushing the phone back into his pocket.

It wasn’t a terribly long walk to Ezra’s neighborhood, but the ache in his muscles and his head made it unpleasant. The sky was overcast, and his sunglasses blocked out any offending light.

When he got to Ezra’s house, his car was (sure enough) sitting in the driveway, empty. Ezra must have been inside. He lingered outside for a few moments as if he was waiting for him to come outside.

Crowley realized that wasn’t going to happen, so he got in his car, and drove home. Maybe he could get some more sleep.

That Monday was the first time Crowley hadn’t skipped class to sit in on their lunch period. The absence was noticeable when he was in London, since he just hadn’t been at school, but it was pressing and awkward today.

The three had a stiff conversation, all thinking about talking about the party, but none of them dared to bring it up. Anathema could tell Ezra was angry, and sad, and probably a little betrayed. Not to mention uncomfortable with what had happened to him at the party - not even counting Crowley.

When Newt walked into calculus, Crowley wasn’t sitting there as he always was. Instead Crowley came shuffling in a few minutes after the bell, slowly lowering himself down into the seat. Newt could smell freshly sprayed cologne and an undercurrent of alcohol.

Cool, okay, alright.

Crowley got all of his things out, attempting to be quiet, but just ended up fumbling around and dropping things with surprisingly low coordination or reaction time. He managed the quiet bit, at least.

Newt honestly did not know how he walked in without tripping and falling. He figured they wouldn’t be going to the library, so he tried his best to pay attention in class with Crowley… just being drunk next to him.

It’s surprising how distracting a drunk person could be, even when they were just sitting still. Crowley never fidgeted, mind - but he was a creature that was constantly in motion. This was multiplied tenfold when intoxicated. He swayed, fumbled with a pen, tried to take notes, swayed some more… you get the idea.

 _’Crowley is extremely drunk in class’_ , he texted Anathema under the desk.  
_’I probably have to drive him home since we both know Ezra definitely won’t’_ , he followed up.

He put his phone away after that, not waiting for a response. He’d get one eventually. This was just a matter of keeping each other updated.

After class ended and Crowley somehow managed to put his things away with dexterity and speed bordering on “a little drunk” instead of “fucking wasted”, Newt stopped him before he could stand up.

“I’m driving you home,” Newt said. “I don’t think you could even get the car started like this.” Crowley just shrugged. He didn’t argue or anything - he’d actually considered how he was going to get home. He supposed he’d sleep it off in his backseat and then drive home when he’d sobered up a bit.

Crowley followed Newt outside, gave him the keys, and got into the passenger seat.

“I live in Willowbranch, it’s that li’l-”

“I know where you live,” Newt calmly interrupted.

“Oh,” was all Crowley had to say. He didn’t ask how. Truth was, he didn’t need to ask. He already knew. “Wha- uh, Ezra? What ‘bout him?”

“He’s heading home with Anathema, like he did when you were gone,” Newt quietly explained.

Crowley didn’t respond, leaning his head against the window. He felt a little sick, but he knew it wasn’t bad enough that he’d throw up. He could just live with it.

Newt parked Crowley’s car in the driveway, a little crooked, but it was fine. Crowley took the keys and went inside, so Newt just walked home.

He lived a few streets down, but it wasn’t that far - he had a thick coat, anyway. He was a little jealous of how close Anathema and Ezra lived to each other, and wished he only lived a few houses down from Crowley.

After thinking about the man who had come to the doorway, he took that thought back. Maybe it was best he didn’t live within a sight line of Crowley’s property. He knew how some of the people in this area were.

If he had a dark sense of humor (he didn’t), Newt could probably start gambling on Crowley’s habits. It was a roulette wheel of if he was going to show up to school, and if he did, if he was going to be sober. He didn’t get as drunk as he did that first time, but he was definitely drinking.

Newt didn’t drive Crowley home again, and took the bus. A few times he saw Crowley climbing into the backseat of his own car after school, presumably to sleep off the alcohol.

This only went on for a week and a half before he and Anathema decided they needed to confront the problem. The three of them (Anathema, Newt, and Ezra) were all sitting at their lunch table, steeping in an awkward period of silence.

“You should talk to him,” Anathema said, all of a sudden.

“I-” Ezra looked away. “If he wants to talk, he can approach me. And he hasn’t yet,” he quietly said.

“That’s the same approach he’s taking, though,” Newt said. “He messed up, he’s waiting for you to come to him.”

“He’s the one who should be apologizing to me for that stunt he pulled,” Ezra snapped.

Anathema had never seen Ezra look angry at another person. She’d never thought she’d see such anger directed at anybody - and especially not Crowley. It was impossible to fathom (well, before she'd actually seen it).

“Ezra,” Anathema started, “you should talk to him. He’ll apologize, but you have to open that door.”

“He really thinks you hate him,” Newt spoke a little quietly, so as not to ‘gang up’ on Ezra, or push too hard. Ezra was quiet for a long while. Newt spoke again.

“He spends all his time at home. Which… as I’ve gathered, isn’t, exactly _normal_ for him? You could just go and talk to him.”

“I’m not going over there to talk to him. The last time I did that, I thought I was going to get mugged!” Ezra saw the look on Newt’s face, and quickly added- “by his brothers, I mean. He’s got two older brothers. Quite… unsavoury characters, they are.”

“You could go when they’re not home,” Newt suggested. “They drive a different car, just wait until it’s gone.” Ezra rubbed his face and threw his hands out, palms up.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll do it today, I know he’s not here today.”

“It needs to happen,” Anathema said. That was the end of the conversation.

Ezra walked to Willowbranch after class. It was cold out, yes, but he needed to clear his head, and what was a better way to do that than to take a 15 minute walk from school?

When he got there, Crowley’s car was the only car in the driveway. He walked up to the front door, braced himself, and knocked.

He heard a few shouts back and forth from inside (unable to make them out). When the door opened, Ezra was startled into silence.

Seeing Crowley’s father open the door that night two weeks ago was… a little surprising, given his appearance, but it didn’t startle him. Ezra almost expected it, to see a figure that looked as dirty and absent and as crude as he always imagined Crowley’s father.

He didn’t ever expect Crowley to look like that. He was always put-together and sleek, even when intoxicated.

Crowley wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he was wearing stained light-wash jeans that looked a couple sizes too large. His hair was sticking up everywhere, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. He didn’t have a bottle of anything in his hand, which was… promising, to say the least.

“Well?” Crowley prompted, when Ezra stood at the door silently. Ezra opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

From within, there was a shout of _shut that fuckin’ door, it’s cold as shit outside!_

Crowley grimaced, grabbed a jacket from beside the door, and stepped out onto the front step, closing the door behind himself.

“We, we need to talk about what happened,” Ezra finally said. His anger melted away with how surreal the situation was just then. This wasn’t Crowley - it couldn’t be.

“Great, I was just about to ask.” Crowley patted the pockets of the jacket, pulled out a cigarette pack, and tossed it to the ground with a shrug when he found it to be empty. “‘Cause I sure as fuck don’t remember anything.” He sounded as sharp as usual - sober, hopefully. The statement reopened his wound afresh, and he was angry all over again.

“From what I heard, you took some drugs and then got in a fight with the host,” Ezra crossed his arms over his chest. Crowley wrapped the jacket around his bare torso and shrugged.

“Yeah, sounds about right. I hear he knocked me clean out, too. I’m honestly not surprised, he’s got a hell of an arm-”

“Crowley, would you just _shut up?_ ” Ezra was almost desperate now, biting his lip as he looked around at the property. This was the longest he’d ever been there. “Why- I just-” Ezra sighed. Crowley watched his face, and then turned to open the door.

“Come on, it’s cold out,” Crowley finally offered.

Ezra gawked again, as if Crowley actually expected him to come inside.

As it turns out, he did. Crowley grabbed Ezra’s sleeve, yanking him inside.

The house was small, he realized. He could see the kitchen, living room, and down the hallway just from where he was standing. The house was dirty. It was dingy, and the kind of way houses look when they’re just _old_ \- cluttered up and unclean.

He recognized the smell of alcohol and cigarettes (and maybe vomit) from when he’d first stepped into Dagon’s home, but it was much stronger here. He could see Crowley’s father sitting in an armchair in the living room, a drink in his hand and the telly on. He didn’t look up.

He took his coat off and hung it up, following Crowley down the hallway. Looking around the house, he wanted to cry. He never truly understood why Crowley spent so much time and energy avoiding this place, but now he could see why. Ezra didn’t even want to be walking through it - he couldn’t possibly fathom _living here._

The thought that Crowley’s older brothers also lived here just made it worse. He tried to ignore that bit as they both walked into Crowley’s bedroom, and shut the door.

It was a very small room, but it was clean and fresh. The walls were a pale gray, and everything felt like it was in its place. There weren’t many things in there (a bed and a desk), but it felt correct. Crowley sat on the bed, and Ezra sat down on the desk chair.

“Listen- I’m sorry,” Crowley said. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that shit, or picked a fight with Levi, or made everything so awful.” Crowley was looking down at his lap, picking at a thread on the seam of his pants.

“I really should have stayed with you,” Ezra said. “Kept your temper in check.” It was a little crack at humor, and Crowley smiled a bit.

“Maybe. ‘S just what I keep you around for.” Ezra laughed a little.

“Lucy was flirting with me,” Ezra admitted, after a little pause. Crowley snorted, and looked up.

“Oh, no. She hooked back up with Levi in the same night,” Crowley said. Ezra shook his head with a little smile.

“To be fair, I do think I led her on a little bit on accident. Mostly because I didn’t notice she was flirting with me until it was too late.” That pulled a little laugh from Crowley. It was quiet, more subdued than usual. It was a little sad.

“I- uh, yeah. I let Dagon talk me into snorting a pill. You heard about that. Apparently Lucy got her hands on them and wanted to share the wealth - but I’m not allowed to tell you that part.” Crowley smiled, and Ezra just rolled his eyes.

“What interesting characters you choose to spend your time with,” Ezra chided.

“They were cool three years ago, alright? I hated it, anyway. Worst experience of my life. Don’t do drugs, angel.” Ezra pressed a hand to his chest at the accusation that he would ever, feigning offense with a grin.

“I’ll have you know, I am a child of God,” Ezra dramatically stated.

“You gave alcohol to children,” Crowley reminded him.

“I might have expected you not to remember that part.” Ezra laughed. “They did have fun, though, for what it’s worth. They’re a very nice couple.”

“They hooked up?”

“Well- Crowley, don’t put it like that. I doubt they did, they’re 14. They _got together._ They’re both quite happy.”

“Oh, okay. Didn’t really notice. Did Newt tell you he had to drive me home a few days ago?” Crowley cocked a brow. Ezra looked up at Crowley's face, concerned.

“Crowley, that was a week and a half ago,” Ezra said quietly, “he told me.” Ezra paused for a second, and scooted the chair over so he could take Crowley’s hand. “I was so worried about you, and I didn’t want to say anything.”

They were close enough now that Crowley’s knees could almost touch the edge of the chair. Crowley squeezed Ezra’s hand gently.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley said.

“You know, I-" “Crowley, I’m-”

They both spoke at the same time, and stopped at the same time. Ezra nodded his head, telling Crowley to go ahead. Crowley smiled a little bit, even though he’d almost lost his nerve by then.

Crowley opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He reached out to take Ezra’s other hand.

“Remember the first party I took you to, when we were sitting outside?”

Ezra tilted his head a bit. He was curious as to where this was going.

“...Yes, I do,” Ezra said. “Why?”

Crowley looked down to where the fabric of his jeans were almost brushing past the edge of the chair. They were so close now. Close enough, Crowley thought.

“I…” Crowley hadn’t planned this far ahead.

He didn’t plan anything at all, actually. Ezra was looking at him with those big, curious blue eyes.

Their eyes met, and Crowley was overwhelmed with how beautiful Ezra looked. Light standing out of dark.

 _Fuck it,_ Crowley said to himself. _Fuck this, fuck it, I’m doing it._

He leaned forward all of a sudden to kiss Ezra, only to find that Ezra had the same idea, and met him in the middle.

Crowley wishes he could describe the kiss. A thought he had somewhere in there was that it was nothing like the movies - there was no swelling music, nothing like the world falling around them. Crowley thought the world could fall around them, though - and he wouldn’t even care.

He wrapped his arms around Ezra’s shoulders to pull him closer, and Ezra reached up to cup Crowley’s cheek. It was rough with stubble, and Ezra was going to make him shave as soon as they got this out of their system.

It proved to be a lot longer than he thought it would be. At some point, Ezra had climbed up into Crowley’s lap when they pulled away for a breath, if only to make it more comfortable. Ezra had a hand resting on Crowley’s chest, Crowley with a hand on the small of Ezra’s back as they kissed.

It’s not like it went anywhere. The kiss stayed as it was, stayed in place - their hands didn’t wander. Ezra was the first to pull back and take in a breath, pressing a few fingers to Crowley’s lips when he tried to go back in.

Upon realizing his situation, Ezra got off of Crowley’s lap, and instead sat on the bed beside him, taking a moment to straighten out his clothes.

“Now,” Ezra said, after composing himself, “what was that about the party?”

 _”That._ That’s what I was going to do.” Crowley had known it since. Ezra also knew this, internally.

“Why didn’t you?” Ezra asked. Crowley just shrugged.

“Cold feet. And then Dagon had to ruin it.”

“Oh,” Ezra responded.

They sat quietly, side by side like that for a few more moments before Crowley kissed Ezra again. This one was much shorter, before Ezra gently pushed him away, telling him to shave and get dressed before they went back home.

Crowley happily complied, and Ezra waited out in the car.

They still slept in separate beds in the same room, upon Ezra’s request to take things slow. Crowley couldn’t be happier to hear those words in his entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huzzah! worry not, there are still chapters to come!
> 
> Let me know if there's anything you'd like to say or see!


	18. So, You Really Love Him?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley always wanted a sister. He also wanted a boyfriend with a stable family, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

When Ezra walked into class that morning, Anathema could hardly discern a single emotion he was exuding. They were all incredibly strong, and there was a lot of them. He sat down, and she looked at him.

“How’d it go?” She asked.

Ezra shrugged after a hesitation. 

“It, went. You know. It went well,” he responded, his face flushed pink. 

“What happened?” Ezra’s face got even more pink, so Anathema just gave a smug look to him. 

Ezra mumbled something about it not being appropriate for children, even though Ezra himself knew that nothing inappropriate happened and Anathema was not a child. It did, however, answer her question. 

-

“I just don’t know how you could _think_ that, if you’ve read the novella,” Anathema said. 

She and Ezra were discussing a literary theory of one of their classmates - one that was quite unpopular with literally anybody else. Newt sad idly by and nodded along, having never read the novella they were talking about.

“Well, they say you see what you want to see,” Ezra admitted. “If you read it looking for… any subtextual content, you’re going to find subtextual content.” 

Anathema watched as Crowley strode up and sat down heavily beside Ezra.

“Morning, ladies. What’re we talking about today?” Crowley announced. 

“Kafka, I’m afraid,” Ezra responded, and Crowley made a face as if he’d just bit into a lemon. 

“Hey, wait- _ladies?”_ Newt questioned, having possibly been the only one to notice. 

Crowley shrugged, and yawned. Ezra smiled when he looked at Crowley, and Crowley cocked a brow back.

“So your talk went well?” Anathema said, unafraid to dig now that Crowley was here.

“Oh, yeah, grand gesture, went great. Real sappy,” Crowley said.

“You answered the door without a shirt on, love,” Ezra said. 

Crowley scoffed, sputtered, and took the apple from in front of him to take a bite. Anathema laughed. 

“You also showed up at an _inopportune time,_ Ezra.”

“You could have at least gotten dressed to answer the door, Crowley,” Ezra complained. Crowley gave him a look.

“I did get dressed to answer the door.” 

Ezra didn’t want to know, so he abandoned the topic with a little huff. Anathema raised her brows at Newt, who raised his brows back. Nobody mentioned it. 

“Well,” Newt said, “at least I won’t have to drive you home again.” 

Crowley scoffed, and nudged Ezra. “You need to learn how to drive soon, if you ever want to get out of the house without me.” 

Ezra sighed, resting his chin in his palm - a gesture he inexplicably picked up from Crowley. 

“Okay, fine. Only once the ice comes up, it’d be a shame if I wrecked your terrible excuse for a car.” 

The four continued to make fun of Crowley’s car (it didn’t bother Crowley, he got it for a couple thousand bucks and it hardly ran). Everything was correct again. 

Anathema and Newt wondered if anything actually transpired between the two. Knowing Ezra and Crowley, they went ahead and assumed they were back to being friends who were really quite affectionate with each other because they were ignoring their feelings. 

Newt didn’t ask in calculus, and they didn’t discuss much (aside from the fact that Crowley was available to tutor that afternoon for the first time in a while, which was great, because both of them were horribly behind.) 

Newt noticed that as Crowley and Ezra walked to the car to go home, they held hands. 

“I’ve been taking the notes you missed,” Newt said, once they were in the car.

“Oh, great. The ones I’ve got from the week are rubbish,” Crowley said. 

“Wonder why that is,” Ezra said.

 _”Wonder why that is,”_ Crowley mocked. 

Ezra gave him an indignant look, before starting to laugh.

“You’re ridiculous, Crowley.” Ezra shook his head. 

The first thing they noticed when they pulled up to Ezra’s house was the sudden appearance of two more cars than usual. It wasn’t too out of place, but it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the vehicle when Crowley and Ezra saw it. 

Crowley parked his car on the side of the street, and Ezra hurriedly climbed out, jogging up the front walk to go inside. Crowley watched with a dumbfounded expression.

“What-” Newt was immediately cut off as Crowley turned his head around.

“Stay here, don’t move, I’ll come back out soon, if it’s been more than 10 minutes go to Anathema’s,” Crowley cracked the window and got out, following Ezra up. He left the car on, which was nice. Newt didn’t think he had any place heading inside.

Crowley saw Michael and Gabriel when he headed inside, standing to either side of Ezra. Gabriel had a hand on Ezra’s shoulder, and they all looked hopeless. 

Ezra looked up when he saw Crowley, pulling away from his brothers to stride over and bury his face in the other’s neck. Crowley wrapped his arms around Ezra, petting his hair as he gave a confused look to the older boys. Michael waved his hand, as if to say “we’ll tell you later”. 

If Crowley leaned far enough, he could see Ezra’s mother sitting at the table with a blank expression. _At least she’s okay,_ he thought. Beatrice (Beelzebub) was sitting across from her.

“Oh, Crowley,” Ezra mumbled. 

Crowley noticed he was crying, and trying to hide it. Crowley didn’t blame him. It was another few moments before Ezra pulled away, wiping his face off. Crowley left a hand on his shoulder.

Crowley could hear Ezra’s mother and Beatrice speaking quietly to each other. 

_I can’t believe he would do this,_ Ezra’s mother said.  
_Sometimes thingzz don’t work out,_ Beatrice responded.  
_But… divorce? Oh, Lord give me strength,_ Ezra’s mother moaned.

Ah. That’ll do it. Divorce usually wasn’t a massive deal, but… they were a family of the church, after all. Crowley could understand why this was so devastating to them. 

Ezra’s mother had been practically single for years now, but the last thing she wanted to be was a _divorced woman._ She took pride on the wedding ring on her finger, even if she hated the man who gave it to her. It made sense, really - and at such a turning point in Ezra’s life. 

Crowley and Beatrice made eye contact from across the room. 

Her expression was sympathetic for the woman in front of her. Crowley’s was sympathetic for the boy in front of him. 

They came to a stalemate, so they could deal with what was in front of them before they dealt with their mutual history.

“Oh, dear- oh, Crowley, you need to go, don’t you? Newt must be waiting for you,” Ezra fussed, his hands fluttering over Crowley’s chest in an expression that said _please don’t go._

“It can wait,” Crowley gently said, taking Ezra’s hands. “I’m going to go out and tell him to go to Anathema’s, and then I’ll be right back inside.” Crowley waited for Ezra to nod and say ‘okay’ before he pulled away to go back out to his car, getting in to take the keys.

“Tutoring is cancelled, go to your girlfriend’s house, I’ll update you when I have the time,” was all Crowley said before he was right back inside again. 

Newt watched him go, locking the car before he got out and set off down the street. He knocked at the front door of Anathema’s grandmother’s house, relieved when Anathema showed up.

“That was fast,” she said, opening the door further so he could come in.

He did, and took his coat off once he was inside and she shut the door.

“They’re both inside right now. There are two extra cars in the driveway, and Crowley didn’t have time to explain it. I’m… not really sure what happened, or who the other people are? Whatever it is, it’s probably bad,” Newt explained. 

Anathema sighed, and ushered him in so they could wait for news on the situation together.

In the meantime, the boys went down to the basement to discuss the matter at hand once Ezra had a bit more to process it. 

The basement had a couch and a couple chairs, as well as a card table (where they were all seated). It was a bit of a “”man cave”” of sorts to Mr. Fell, but hadn’t been used much in the past 12 or so years. 

“He mailed the papers to her today,” Gabriel explained. “She called me this morning and told me what happened, so Bea and I came down. I’m guessing she just didn’t want to startle you,” Gabriel added, directed towards Ezra.

“What’s- uh, what’s Beatrice up there doing right now?” Crowley asked.

“She’s a law student, so she’s just going over everything with her. Just so she doesn’t have to pay a divorce lawyer yet.”

“God knows the last thing she needs is to pay some guy to tell her about her own divorce,” Michael said. Everybody nodded. 

Ezra reached over to take Crowley’s hand under the table, and Crowley squeezed the other’s hand gently as he took it. 

“That sucks,” Crowley said. 

“Aren’t… aren’t your parents divorced, Crowley?” Ezra glanced over at him, and suddenly all eyes were on him.

Crowley shrugged, gesturing with a hand, making non committed noises the whole way through.

“Not.. well- th- uh, never married, actually. Custody bullshit sure made it feel like a divorce, though- oh, ‘scuse my language.” Nobody seemed to care about the language.

Michael gave Crowley an odd look, one Crowley construed as being judgemental that he was a bastard kid. Crowley just looked right back at Michael, and they made weird aggressive eye contact until he felt a kick under the table from Ezra. 

“It’s similar,” Gabriel said, perhaps to lessen the small tension in the air. 

Crowley shrugged, rubbing his thumb over Ezra’s knuckles. Perhaps it was similar. 

“It’s different when it’s your own parents,” Michael said, crossing his arms over the table. 

Ezra pulled a face, looking between his two brothers.

“Well, it was going to happen anyway,” Ezra said, “it was just a matter of time. Don’t say it wasn’t, he was never around anyway.” 

Crowley, deep down, was kind of glad. He’d met Mr. Fell twice in his whole life, and he seemed like a hardass. Maybe a fatherly hardass, one with paternal instincts, but Crowley knew they dissolved long before he ever met Ezra. 

He was in that same boat. He lived with his father, but he’d only met his dad once or twice. The only reason he was glad to have lived there with him was because of Ezra. 

Soon enough the boys’ discussion turned towards recanting tales about their father from when he was still around, and Crowley excused himself to go upstairs (after assuring Ezra that he wasn’t leaving, and would still be there, just upstairs). 

Crowley ran into Beelzebub just outside the entrance to the staircase. Ezra’s mother, presumably, was going to find a lawyer. 

“Still hanging around this place?” she said. 

It wasn’t said with malice, just curiosity - as if she genuinely wondered what he was getting out of it. 

Crowley shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Heard you’re in law school now,” he said.

“I changed my name, aszz well.”

“Beatrice is legal? Huh, alright.” 

“I’ve notizzed you kept the name,” she pointed out, “why?”

That was a good question, there. He turned his head to look out the window.

“As much as I resent what happened, it has nothing to do with her. Or you, honestly,” he responded, after a long moment. “And as much as I resent what happened, I’ll always harbor more disgust for my father. Why did you change your name?”

She crossed her arms over her chest as he asked the question. It was fair game now, she supposed.

“I left and never looked back. I didn’t want to be connected to…” She gestured with a hand. “What happened. I’m done with it.” She studied Crowley’s face for a long moment. “Are you going back?”

He let out a string of hesitant and half-baked noises, rocking on his heels.

“Wh- well, I might. Haven’t decided yet. Don’t know how well that’d go over with…” Crowley nodded his head down the stairs.

“So you two are-”

“Yes, kind of. I haven’t given much thought to going back. To London, yes. To the temple…” He shrugged. 

She understood the hesitation. She experienced it, too.

“So you really love him, huh?” He said, watching her face. 

“I suppozze I do. We’ve been together for a while now,” she responded, with little hesitation. “Do you love him?” 

Crowley had to think about that one for a moment. He looked around the house.

“Yes, I do,” he finally said. “We’ve been together for a while, too. We just didn’t know it.”

They both looked at each other for a long moment, before Crowley held a hand out. A peace offering. They shook hands, and resigned themselves to probably becoming family members in the future.

Crowley always wanted a sister, anyway. 

Later in the afternoon, after dinner, Michael left, and then Gabriel followed with Beatrice, sharing goodbyes and condolences. It wasn’t like it’d be the last time they’d see each other - London wasn’t terribly far away.

That night, Ezra asked Crowley if they could sleep in the same bed. Crowley said yes, of course, and they embraced each other as they lay in Ezra’s bed.

Once he’d fallen asleep, Crowley told Ezra that he loved him.

He didn’t respond, on account of being asleep. Crowley knew he would have said it back if he was awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be the "last" chapter, and then the 20th will be kind of an epilogue. Check out my Twitter (@bitch_ohmygod) for updates on this story, this series, and anything else I'm working on!


	19. Find Another Superstition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra finds answers for questions he's had for a very, very long time. Ezra can start living his life the way he wants to, with the family he's chosen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is officially the last chapter! the next chapter is an epilogue.
> 
> i want to thank each and every one of you reading these words right now for making this possible. this is the first story i've ever been able to finish, and it's been a learning experience. i've been able to hone my creative process into something constructive, to be able to kick my 4-year writer's block, and to have fun with ideas i have and put them all together into a story people want to read. i was inspired by other works in this fandom, and if you're sitting here reading this and thinking "hey, i can do that" or "hey, i want to do that", do it! please do it! write your heart out and post it! 
> 
> thank all of you for this emotional and fun and creative journey. i'll be posting more works in and out of this series very, very soon!

The rest of winter passed quietly, as winters often did, with all of that snow there to muffle sounds. In the spring, Crowley and Ezra graduated (with lots of heckling and complaining from Newt and Anathema). Things were quiet and well. 

Temporarily, at least. 

_Tap, tap._

-

It wasn’t every night that Crowley and Ezra slept in the same bed. After all, both the beds in Ezra’s bedroom were twin-sized, so it was hardly comfortable or practical to regularly fit two 18 year old boys in it. On top of that, sometimes it was just nice to sleep alone. They slept in the same room almost every night, just apart the room from each other.

At one point, Crowley pointed out that it was a little odd that they’d practically shared a room for the past six or seven years, and they both laughed about it. They must have been so obvious, how silly that they didn’t notice each other. 

Ezra supposed once you live with something long enough, you stop noticing it. Crowley was a constant presence in his life - constantly moving, constantly changing, but he was _constant._ Crowley was the most comforting presence in Ezra’s life, and somehow he didn’t know what he’d do without him. It was hard not to notice when he was gone, due to how constant he was.

On the few nights Crowley wasn’t sleeping across the room from Ezra or in his bed with his long arms wrapped around him, Ezra found he had a hard time sleeping. He never really did get used to sleeping in his room alone. He hoped he’d never have to. 

One night, perhaps a night after they graduated, Crowley said he’d be “working late” that night, and wouldn’t be spending the night. Ezra would have just shrugged and nodded and accepted this alibi under the right circumstances.

There was one problem with this explanation. Crowley didn’t, nor did he ever, have a job.

Ezra knew the boy was poor, and learned early on to watch his finances (bless his heart). Ezra also knew that Crowley had never worked a single day of his life. 

Not wanting to raise suspicion or cause a scene, Ezra simply shrugged and accepted. He’d ask about it after the fact. It had to be pretty important for Crowley to disappear for a whole night because of it.

-

Ezra couldn’t sleep. His bed was empty, he was alone in his room, and Crowley was out doing something suspicious.

_Tap, tap._

Ezra turned his head over to the clock beside his bed to read the time. _3:30 am._

_Tap. Tap._

Wait.

He turned his head back over, throwing his blanket off of himself to get out of bed. Lo and behold, Crowley was sitting on his roof. At least it wasn’t snowing this time.

Ezra made a face, signaling his displeasure with the situation, walking over to open the window for Crowley.

“Honestly, you really could have used the front door-” “You should really learn to leave your window unlocked-” 

They both spoke at the same time, but Ezra cut himself off first. Crowley happily slid in through the window, shaking himself off once he could turn and close the window. 

Ezra was just standing there, arms crossed over his chest. Crowley stared at him for a couple seconds.

“Well?” Ezra prompted.

“Well what? Don’t look so surprised, this isn’t my first time,” Crowley said, shrugging the jacket off from around his shoulders.

Ezra sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No, I know- I understand that,” Ezra said, “but I’m not just going to go quietly to bed and ignore it this time. What were you doing?”

Crowley hung his jacket up on the closet door handle, fussing with it for a moment, possibly to avoid looking at Ezra.

“Not a big deal,” was all Crowley said.

“Look at me, Crowley.”

Crowley paused before he turned around to look at Ezra. Ezra studied his face for a few seconds, sighed, and dropped his arms. He took a few steps forward, and reached up to take Crowley’s stupid sunglasses off.

“I was just worried about you,” Ezra admitted. 

Crowley ran a hand through Ezra’s feathery blond hair, pulling him close.

“I know to stay out of trouble,” Crowley said. Ezra gave him an incredulous look, and Crowley stuck his tongue out.

“I still want to know where you were. I know you weren’t working.” 

“I was at home.”

Ezra raised a brow up at him.

“What in the world was there for you, my dear?”

“A lot of my stuff. Had to move it out."

Ezra searched his eyes, able to now that his sunglasses were off, still in his hand.

"It doesn't take that long to pack some things up," Ezra said, "what were you doing all night? Half your wardrobe is over here, anyway."

"Yeah," Crowley said, "you know Anathema found one of my shirts over there? I've never even spent a night over there, I have no clue how she got her hands on that-" Crowley was cut off when Ezra reached up and pressed a finger to his lips. 

"Crowley, you're avoiding the question," Ezra pulled his hand away, "what were you doing there for so long?"

Crowley pointedly averted his gaze, but was unable to avoid seeing Ezra’s concern in his peripheral. He was tentative to drag Ezra into his issues (as he has been for the better part of 6 years). At this point, he had no choice, and he knew Ezra wasn’t going to give it to him.

This was the first time in a long time that Ezra had ever pushed when he was met with resistance. 

Unused to Ezra’s resolved when faced with such a situation, Crowley crumbled. 

“Crowley?” Ezra prompted, when it had been a few moments. 

“Alright, alright,” Crowley said, his tone soft. Unusually so, for him. “It wouldn’t have taken so long- I didn’t _plan_ for it to take that long, but something came up, and I had to deal with it.”

“Okay,” Ezra said, “what came up?”

Crowley turned his head to look down at Ezra. The room was dark, and within their proximity, Ezra stood out. Wearing a lot of white tends to make that happen. 

He sighed and pulled Ezra to his chest. The gesture was partially because he needed the embrace, and partially because he couldn’t bear to look Ezra in the face. He didn’t know why.

“M’ dad got up. Don’t know why, I completely expected him to be dead asleep. Saw me packing my things up, we got in a fight,” Crowley finally explained.

Ezra rested his face against Crowley’s chest as he spoke, nodding a bit. 

“I’m not hurt or anything,” Crowley continued after a moment.

Ezra was a bit surprised at the statement. He supposed he should have expected it, really - but when he heard the word “fight”, Ezra pictured an _argument._

He got a little sick to his stomach when he thought about all the times Crowley must have gotten in fights with his father. Ezra felt a little stupid, having made that conclusion - and he felt a little stupid knowing it was just under his nose the whole time.

But that’s just how it works, isn’t it?

“I’m sorry, Crowley,” Ezra mumbled. It was a harrowing thing, having everything fall into place and make sense to him at that moment, standing with Crowley in his bedroom at three in the morning. 

Looking back on it, the first time Crowley sat out on his roof and tapped on his window, Ezra thought he should have asked - asked why Crowley had nowhere else to go. Hindsight is 20/20, though, and he knew the answer to that question, now. 

He then remembered back to when Crowley showed up at his window. He was so small back then (they both were, really). He was just a kid, and his dad was, well - Ezra had met Crowley’s father. 

Ezra pulled back after a moment, reaching up to pat Crowley’s cheek. 

“Let’s just get to bed, shall we?” Ezra smiled. His voice was a little watery, but Crowley didn’t mention it. Instead Ezra got back into bed, and Crowley joined him.

Neither of them slept very much, but they both pretended.

-

After school had gotten out for the lower grades, Ezra and Crowley were mostly left to their own devices. Anathema had gone back to America for a month and a half (to visit her mother), and Newt had actually gotten a job, so they were basically never around.

Given that neither of the two boys had a job, and Crowley was unofficially living at Ezra's mother's house (it could be argued that he was homeless because Mrs. Fell (the divorce hadn't finalized yet) didn't know that Crowley wasn't exactly living anywhere, and he wasn't exactly staying there any more often than he would have, anyway.)

Crowley, ever the avid observer, also came to notice in this period of time that Mrs. Fell wasn’t exactly a fan of homeless people, or homosexuals. One of those was certainly more annoying than the other.

Her distaste for homeless people could just be remedied by simply not telling her that Crowley had left. For all she knew, his things were still in that house in Willowbranch and there weren’t boxes in the trunk of his car which held all of his belongings. Crowley supposed one could argue that he was living out of his car, as well. 

Her distaste for homosexuals was the particularly bothersome part. Crowley discovered this one quickly. Ezra would give him an elbow to the ribs or a smack on the hand whenever Crowley dared to attempt any forms of physical affection anywhere in the house besides his bedroom. She’d shudder to find what they did in that bedroom (sharing a bed? Sacrilege!).

But, Crowley didn’t really have to deal with it for very long. Ezra had gotten accepted to University in London and would be moving there in late August, and Crowley had full intent to go with him. 

“Anthony,” Mrs. Fell had once said over dinner, “didn’t you live in London?”

“Yes,” Crowley responded, “I grew up there, my mum’s still there.”

“You two should head out and spend some time there this summer. You know, just to show Ezra around a bit - he’s never been for more than a week or so,” she suggested.

Crowley and Ezra shared a look - silent, inconspicuous.

“I’ll have to ask my mum,” Crowley decided. “I doubt she’d say no.”

She did, in fact, say yes, and they set a vague estimate of time that they’d be staying. Crowley’s mother seemed to be pretty loose about when they should come and when they should leave, which Crowley explained to mean that they could essentially do whatever they wanted. Ezra didn't argue with this explanation (Crowley had grown up with the woman, anyway.)

Ezra was quite nervous for it all. Living in London sounded exciting, sure - he was a fan of big cities and their fast tempos - but meeting Crowley’s mother face-to-face was what had him getting anxious. She seemed to be a more impulsive and excitable version of her son (the thought of Crowley being a mellowed-out version of anybody was a very odd thought). She was also (as described) a Satanist and a felon, and Ezra wondered if the thing about her being a Satanist was Crowley being serious, or Crowley’s dry humor.

He supposed he’d just have to find out when he got there, which was the worst. 

They left a week after Crowley’s mother accepted. The trip to London was long (for Crowley) and a little bit boring for both of them. They tried complaining to Anathema, who just told them a 45 minute drive was basically just a morning commute for some Americans. They decided to never complain to Anathema about anything else, ever again - clearly, being American gave her much more authority to complain about things.

Ezra complained to Crowley instead, who seemed to derive some sort of humor from it. He made it worse by seeking out the seediest gas station to fill his car up at, with the doors unlocked and the windows rolled down. Crowley may have been able to blend in a little bit, in that environment, with his car being as shitty and rattly as it was, but Ezra was wearing _gingham._ If he stepped outside, he’d be mugged _on sight._

Upon hearing this, Crowley laughed and then commended Ezra on his self awareness before going inside the gas station, leaving Ezra completely alone. He was only gone for a few minutes, but that didn’t stop Ezra from raking him over the coals when he got back.

Crowley laughed the whole time.

They eventually did get into the city. Ezra had been in London before, when he was much younger, and it never failed to amaze him how large some cities were. He’d almost forgotten since then, and he idly wondered how Crowley was able to navigate so well, before remembering he’d grown up there. 

The excitement of the city was almost overwhelming, but it was overshadowed by the excitement (in a much less positive way) of Crowley absolutely speeding and running red lights. Ezra was gripping the side of his seat so hard he thought he might manage to tear it.

“Crowley- could you _slow down?_ The speed limit is 25, you can’t go 75!”

Crowley looked over at him, raising both hands off the wheel in a shrug.

“Why not?”

Ezra huffed, gripping the seat a little harder.

“I can and will jerk that wheel, do not test me,” Ezra said. Crowley just chuckled.

Crowley parked (poorly) on the side of the street outside an apartment building, and Ezra took this as a sign that they had arrived at their destination. It was a relief to him, partially because of how uncomfortable Crowley’s car was, and partially because of how risky a driver he was. 

Ezra got out of the car, and opened up the door to the backseat to pull his bag out. 

“So, here we are, huh?” Ezra said, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Stop being so nervous, angel,” Crowley said, getting out of the car. 

Everything he owned was in his car, so he didn’t bring anything up. Crowley put a hand on Ezra’s back as they headed in, into the elevator. 

She lived on the third floor, down the hall. Ezra was steeling himself - he didn’t know what to expect at this point. Her apartment could be anything, really. 

Upon seeing a tall, thin woman with bright red hair open the door, he could see- first of all, the resemblance, and second of all, an apartment that was… completely normal.

The walls were an off-white (but intentionally so), the place was open, and bright, and neat. She welcomed the two in, and Ezra noticed that she had a bit of a Scottish accent.

It certainly explained the red hair.

She pulled Crowley into a hug, kissing him on the head before offering a hand to Ezra.

“I knew it was just a matter of time until I met you, wasn’t it? Diana Crowley,” she introduced herself. Ezra smiled and shook her hand.

“Ezra Fell, a pleasure to meet you.” When they shook hands, Ezra saw that she had the same bright gold/hazel eyes. They were different, of course - Crowley’s sparkled with youth and mischief. Hers were older, and wise, but they carried the same hardness.

“You boys get settled in the back room.” Diana patted Ezra’s arm, shooing them off down the hall. Crowley took his hand, taking him into the guest room.

“Oh, are we-” Ezra looked around the room, drawing his eyebrows together, “are we sharing a room?”

Said room was the regular guest room. White sheets, queen sized mattress, perfectly neat and tidy.

“Why wouldn’t we? It’s only got two bedrooms anyway,” Crowley said, sitting down on the bed to mess up the sheets.

Ezra set his bag down beside the bed, sitting down across from Crowley.

“Just… odd that she’d allow that, is all,” he said.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Your mother’s in the minority of not liking it, you know,” Crowley scooted up to sit with his back against one of the pillows, stretching himself out. He turned his head to look over at Ezra.

Ezra shrugged, kicked his shoes off, and joined Crowley in relaxing out on the bed. It was nice to lay down after being in the car for so long. 

“Yes, I suppose she is. Your mother is quite a nice woman. Looks exactly like you,” Ezra responded. 

To translate, Ezra expected somebody who more precisely embodied somebody who’d been to prison. He still didn’t know what her charge was, but he supposed none of that mattered.

The time he spent away from his mother (which he’d never really done before) was a relief for Ezra. Crowley’s mother was the complete opposite of his own. She was kind, and loud, and funny, and unafraid to speak her mind. She had three different children with three different men, and she wasn’t ashamed of it.

Ezra realized that you didn’t have to live life the way other people wanted or expected you to. You didn’t have to settle down and marry a woman and have three children and live in a house in the suburbs. You could marry your best friend and live in the city together and have fun.

The realization took him all of two weeks to stumble across and process. He’d been afraid to live the life he wanted to live for 18 years, but he could finally start doing it.

On the last night they were there, laying in bed together, the lights already turned out, he turned his head to look at Crowley.

“Still awake, dear?”

“Yes, angel,” came the reply.

“Crowley…” Ezra rolled over to lay on his back, “if we ever get married, we’re not having our wedding in a church.”

Crowley didn’t respond for a long moment.

“What made you come to that decision, Ezra?”

“I just… because that’s what my family expects of me. They want me to involve the Church. I don’t want to, though. It doesn’t have to be religious,” Ezra said, “because as long as you’re there, and we’re with our families, nothing else has to matter, right?”

The word “family” was used loosely. Crowley didn’t have much blood-related family left, but they had both chosen a family, and they’d both chosen each other, and that’s all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as an american who lives in a very large state, writing the scene where ezra complains about a 45 minute drive was the most disingenuous thing i've ever typed out. 
> 
> the epilogue will be up on monday. these past two weeks have been the most fun two weeks of my summer, and i hope to continue writing! keep an eye on my twitter (@bitch_ohmygod) for updates on this series and other stuff i'm working on!


	20. Closure (Finally)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley doesn't have to relive his past to get closure. He's burned the candle at both ends for 18 years, lived in limbo for 16, and he can finally start living.
> 
> Crowley and Ezra go back home for some festivities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you all have no idea how wonderful and amazing and fun writing this has been. i'm so excited to write more in this series.  
> you also have no clue how excited i am to post this!  
> for this epilogue, i want to say again: if you're reading this, thank you for making this possible for me. creators always say "i couldn't have done this without you", and they're right! even if you haven't left a comment, or even kudos, and are just here to read, that's just fine. by reading these words, you're helping, and you're a part of this.

Crowley was an uncommon suspect for a novel. An opening line that could come to mind would be about how Crowley is a simple man, but he was anything but - he wasn't simple, or benevolent, or a saint.

He yelled at his plants, and he glued coins to the sidewalk, and he fed bread to the ducks at Saint James park (bread was really no good for ducks).

Crowley's husband was one of the most simple yet complex people he'd ever met. Ezra dropped out of university when he was 20, because he just didn't like it, and opened up his own bookshop instead. His days consisted of wearing a lot of frock coats and sweater vests and waistcoats and bowties and running a bookshop.

Ezra was a man who looked like he ran a bookshop.

Ezra was not a man who looked like he was dubious or deceitful or mean in any way (and he was often more guilty of this than Crowley was). He scared customers off frequently, and the regular passerby might notice he was almost never open.

He was still able to pay the rent for a corner property in Soho, so he must be bringing in some revenue - it just wasn't from the _bookshop_ , seeing as he never sold any books.

Truth was, Crowley made all the money. He taught at the University of London, where he'd graduated from, and made enough for the two to live comfortably in a humble flat in Mayfair (which in and of itself was not humble in the slightest) and pay the bills on Ezra's business.

Ezra wasn't totally helpless without Crowley. He came from old money - while his mother didn't exactly support his…. _lifestyle_ , he did still have a father who would likely send a check in the mail if Ezra so much as just asked nicely.

Not like he needed it. Ezra had moved away from home when he was 18, in the summertime, just after he graduated high school. He didn't always live with Crowley, but they'd always been together - just over 15 years, it had been.

As complex as they both were, they settled down into a simple life together. They had their routines, their favorite restaurants, their favorite park bench. They mellowed each other out, and made the other a simple creature.

By this definition, Crowley was a simple (married) man.

He liked to sit on his sofa and listen to Tchaikovsky and drink tea with Ezra. 

He was doing that just about now, listening to the other man talk about a first edition something or other he'd been bartering to get his hands on for days now. Crowley nodded along, some of it going right over his head, but happy to listen anyway.

Honestly, half of the things they talked to each other about, only one of the people talking knew anything about. 

Ezra was just getting to the part of the story when he'd quite rudely told the gentleman to have a good day when the phone to the left of the sofa rang. Ezra picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is Anthony J. Crowley there?" the caller said.

"Oh! One moment, he's right here-" Ezra covered the mouthpiece of the phone, "dear, there's a woman on for you," before handing it over to Crowley.

"Anthony Crowley, who's this?" He supposed it was some telemarketer, or a colleague he'd given his home number to who was calling at an unusual time.

"Anathema Device," the woman responded. A smirk crept onto Crowley's face.

"Well, well. Phoning me at 6 in the afternoon on a Tuesday- how can I help you?" Ezra looked at Crowley, silently asking who was there, but Crowley just waved him off.

"Seeing as you vanished into thin air to the big city once you graduated, I was checking to see if you were still breathing," Anathema said, cocky and smartass-y as ever. Crowley forgot how much he enjoyed that about her.

"Breathing, hardly. Shall I inquire into how you got this phone number? You're calling my home phone," he said.

"You'd be surprised at how easy things are when you just ask around, though I didn't manage to catch your home address. I know you're in London, and that's about it."

"If you're going to try and show up at my door, I'm going to stop you right there and say that you shouldn't. Why should you have my address?" Crowley glanced over to Ezra as he spoke, waving off another curious look.

"How defensive. Newt and I were sending out wedding invitations, and we added you to the list, but couldn't figure where you'd vanished to all these years."

"Hardly vanished, I've been in the same place. You just haven't been looking hard enough - or calling. It's hardly my fault," Crowley defended. After a pause, he continued, "do you have a pen and paper out? I'd love an invitation,"

Anathema confirmed that she did, in fact, have a pen and paper, and Crowley relayed his address. From the background of Anathema's surroundings, he could hear an incredulous "Mayfair?!" from who he supposed was Newt.

"Now," Crowley said, "am I allowed a plus one?"

"It depends on who you're bringing, really," she said, "also, I'm putting you on speaker, Newt is here."

"Hello," Newt said, from somewhere in the background.

"When's this wedding supposed to be?" Crowley asked, before he realized he totally ignored Newt. No going back now, he couldn't just admit that he'd refused a greeting.

"It's in late May, a month from now," Anathema replied.

Crowley covered the mouthpiece on the phone so he could address Ezra.

"Do you have anything planned for late May?"

"I don't- good Lord, Crowley, who the hell are you on the phone with? No, I don't have anything going on in late May-" Crowley completely cut him off, lifting the phone back up to his ear.

"Any grievances with Ezra coming with me? Plus one and all," Crowley said.

Anathema seemed to be stunned for a moment, and Newt spoke up.

"I- no, that's quite alright- he was on our list as well, we couldn't find him anywhere," he said.

"It's like he completely vanished into thin air," Anathema agreed. Crowley laughed.

"You looked for him under Ezra Fell, didn't you?" Crowley said.

"Well, yes, how else would we look him up? Did he change his name?" Anathema questioned.

"Certainly did, five years ago," Crowley didn't stop himself from letting pride take over his tone of voice.

"And he changed it to…?" Newt prompted.

"Ezra Fell-Crowley. Already had the sign up on his business, didn't want to fully change his name, so he hyphenated it. Odd enough, comes up as Ezra Crowley some places still, which is a sight to see."

There was a pause - perhaps, Crowley thought, they shared a look with each other. Perhaps it was incredulous.

"You didn't invite us to the wedding?" Anathema questioned. She spoke a bit loud, as if she was annoyed rather than disappointed. 

"Well," Crowley started in a mocking tone, "you two had completely vanished off the face of the planet once I graduated, and had no way to find you. It's also quite difficult to make up invitations without a wedding - we didn't have a proper one."

Ezra finally got fed up, and reached over to take the phone from Crowley.

"Ezra Fell here, and I don't know who you are, but-"

"It's Anathema," Anathema said.

"And Newt," Newt said, for the sake of repetition.

"Oh- oh? Oh! Crowley, why didn't you-" Ezra paused to sigh very heavily into the receiver. A sigh of a man who had married another man who, sometimes, deeply annoyed him. "Well. What's this conversation about?"

"Newt and I are getting married," Anathema said, "we were trying to send out invitations, but all we got on Crowley was a phone number, and we couldn't even find you, since you got married and changed your name."

" _Oh,_ " Ezra breathed. "Oh, I would be honored to come! I absolutely adore weddings- you two will look so nice, I already know it-"

Crowley, for the sake of being annoying, leaned in real close so he could be heard over the phone.

"Why did it take you two so long to tie the knot?" Ezra almost immediately shoved him.

"Crowley, that is so rude-"

"Hey, I've got an idea, how about we meet up somewhere so we're not trying to catch up on 15 years of living our lives over the phone?" Newt suggested.

"That sounds lovely," Ezra said. "We can always come to you, I suppose you two are so stressed with all this wedding planning. Where is it you two live? Oh- hang on, I'll just…" Ezra started to stand to fetch a piece of paper, but he soon found he didn't have to.

"We're living at my Grandmother's old house at the moment," Anathema said. 

Ezra paused, and sat fully back down.

"Well," Ezra said, "I suppose we'll just take a walk down memory lane, won't we?"

"If it's too much-"

"No! No, no, of course not, dear! Such a thing could hardly be unpleasant for me," Ezra assured her. "Does tomorrow afternoon sound fine? Say- 3?"

"Yes, that sounds lovely. I'm looking forward to it, Ezra. Tell Crowley I said the same thing," she said.

"Of course! I'll see you both then. Goodbye Anathema, Newt." Ezra reached over to hang up.

"What did you just agree to for me?" Crowley asked, sipping his tea.

"We're paying Anathema a visit tomorrow," Ezra responded, settling in.

"Where's she live these days?"

"She and Newt are living in her Grandmother's old house," Ezra said, glancing at Crowley out of the corner of his eye to measure his reaction.

He didn't jolt, or throw anything, or choke on his tea, so he supposed it wouldn't be an overwhelmingly negative experience for him. All Crowley did was nod, and give a little hum.

-

Crowley found that 15 year old muscle memory was more reliable than one would think. Navigating wasn't difficult in the slightest once he started recognizing landmarks (including that one seedy gas station, which he pointed out to Ezra's chagrin).

They took a brief detour to drive past some of the schools once they'd made it into town. It looked quite a bit busier than it had when they left - a population increase, obviously. It didn't seem anything particularly dramatic.

Ezra seemed quite happy to be reminiscing. He lived there for his entire childhood, and had time to create far more memories than Crowley ever did. They had good fun pointing out which businesses had gone out and what new ones had come in.

Driving into the neighborhood was interesting. It was larger, first - with more children. They all seemed to be either a bit older, or very young. Crowley slowed by the house that Ezra used to live in, on instinct, and used that as a reference point to pull into Anathema's driveway.

"Her roses are absolutely suffering," Crowley said as he got out of the car, carrying a small tote with a bottle of wine with him. Housewarming gift.

"Crowley, darling, please do try not to offend her by insulting her plants," Ezra responded. He took Crowley's arm as they both stood in front of her door, and Crowley knocked.

The first thing Crowley heard was a dog barking. He winced, and shared a look with Ezra. Neither one of them was a huge fan of dogs.

"Just a moment," they heard Anathema call out from within. 

As promised, a few moments later, she was opening the door. Her personal style hasn't changed a bit over the years, but it has mellowed out a bit into "vaguely witchy". Anathema noted that the direct opposite thing happened to either boy.

Crowley was wearing a blazer and a turtleneck, matched with charcoal slacks. He looked expensive, and modern, and sleek - very "new money".

Ezra, in dress, looked like he really shouldn't have been there. Frock cream coat, tartan bowtie, white shirt and a taupe sweater vest. He wore similar slacks, but they were off-white.

Anathema took only a few seconds to notice all of this and take it in. She idly wondered why they both looked so formal just for a visit.

"You two, come on in. Sorry about all the noise-" Crowley peeked in past Anathema, and saw a young boy sitting at the kitchen table with Newt (who waved).

The two walked in together, following Anathema into her kitchen to sit at the table.

"Crowley, Ezra, this is Adam," she said, gesturing to the boy.

Crowley and Ezra shared a look, and Ezra reached across the table to shake hands with a smile.

"How nice to meet you, dear boy," he chirped.

"He's a neighbor boy who likes to visit. I work with his mom, so he's here a lot," Anathema explained, heading to the stove. Crowley could smell black tea.

"Glad you explained that one away before both of us thought you had a b-" Crowley was cut off by Ezra kicking him under the table, and Crowley grunted.

"Maybe I just wanted you to briefly exist in a world where you had to think about Newt and I having children," Anathema said over her shoulder.

"Who are you?" Adam cut in, the question pointed at Crowley and Ezra.

"Well," Ezra said, "we used to know Anathema and Newt when they were in school, and they called us yesterday to invite us to their wedding." Adam nodded in understanding. 

Anathema distributed some cups of tea, and a cup of lemonade for Adam before she sat down, brushing her hair out of her face.

"So," Crowley drawled, setting his cup down. "How's wedding planning? You two ready to rip each other's' throats out yet?" 

"Well, actually, we hired a wedding planner," Newt said, "it's been a fairly easy process so far, we've just had to make decisions."

Ezra gave Crowley a pointed look, and Crowley returned the look.

"See, darling, wedding planners aren't all that bad," Ezra said, reaching over to pat his husband's arm.

"I never said they were bad. They're too expensive, angel, there was no way we could have afforded it. You forget that Anathema has a trust fund, or something," Crowley responded. 

Anathema shrugged, because Crowley wasn't wrong. Ezra opened his mouth to say something before there was a knock, and a little black and white dog jumped off of Adam's lap to start barking.

Newt got up and headed over to open the door, only having to look for a moment before stepping aside.

"Adam, it's your friends," Newt said. Crowley and Ezra both turned their heads to peer out, coming eye to eye with The Them (minus one).

Adam got up and thanked Anathema for the lemonade, heading outside with a "come on, dog!"

Newt shut the door, and joined the rest of the adults at the table. Crowley picked the aforementioned tote (the one with the wine) up, setting it on the table.

"Did he name his dog… 'dog'?" Ezra asked.

"You'd be surprised at how creative he is elsewise," Anathema said, accepting the gift from Crowley.

Newt leaned over to look at the label, cocking a brow. "This is really expensive," he said.

"Thank you both," she said with a smile.

"Oh, it's no big deal, really, just dug something out of our cellar," Ezra grinned. They didn't really have a wine cellar. They had a cabinet where they kept all of their wine. Ezra just really liked to call it their "cellar" so he could flex.

"So," Anathema said, getting up to put the bottle of wine away. "Mayfair, huh? Newt told me that was a pretty big deal,"

"Moved into an apartment a few years ago," Crowley explained. "Originally there was a space over Ezra's bookshop - he's got one of those - that we were living in, but it was far too small, so we moved once we had the funds."

"Oh, okay," Anathema said. "So what do you two do for work these days?" She sat back down, sipping her tea.

"Well, as Crowley said, I've got a bookshop. Even though I don't bring in too much revenue, I just couldn't bear sitting around at home all day doing nothing!" Ezra said.

"I've got a job teaching at the university," Crowley said. Both Anathema and Newt looked surprised at this revelation.

"So Mr. Crowley has become Dr. Crowley?" Newt asked. Crowley just nodded.

"I didn't think you'd even enroll in college," Anathema mused, "let alone make it through with a PhD."

"How offensive, Anathema, you've hurt my feelings. I'm teaching organic chemistry and microbiology."

"Makes more sense than anything else," Newt said. He knew firsthand that Crowley was good with numbers and sciences.

"Shocking more, I'm the one who dropped out," Ezra mentioned. He looked quite proud at the moment - definitely not at himself, but rather at Crowley. Being a college dropout didn't bother Ezra at all. After all, he had the life he'd always wanted to have. 

"So what are you two up to?" Crowley asked, resting his chin on his hands.

"I work at a hospital," Anathema said, "Research pharmacy." Crowley nodded, glancing over at Newt.

"Oh, well- I'm. I'm between jobs at the moment. I've got my BA in computer engineering, but… I'm afraid I'm, not too good with computers," Newt said, tapping his fingers awkwardly on the counter.

Crowley nodded, holding back a laugh. The irony of the situation was funny, but it must have been stressful for Newt.

"Oh, have you perhaps looked into data science? A friend I had in university had a similar problem - she wanted to go into computer science, but didn't have the math skills to go into it, so she tried data science instead," Ezra said, catching himself before he started to ramble.

Newt considered the advice for a moment.

"I'll… look into that, thanks," he said. Newt and Anathema shared an expression that was part relieved and part happy.

"As I asked yesterday, why's it taken you two so bloody long?" Crowley interjected into the nice and lovely moment.

"We actually lost track of one another for a while," Anathema said, "seems _almost_ all of us did. I went to college in America, but I came back after I graduated because Newt reached out to me."

Newt and Anathema took one another's hands. How romantic. Crowley just nodded, and Ezra awww'd.

"What a lovely couple," Ezra said, "you know, I told Crowley that years and years ago, after that one party-"

"Oh, I remember that," Crowley cut in, "the party, not you telling me about them."

"It's a wonder you remember anything," Ezra said, and Crowley shook his head.

If Anathema thought they operated like a well-oiled machine 15 years ago, she didn't know what they were now. They operated like a unit, like they always had - but now far more familiar than ever. They'd become two halves of a whole, and aside from their physicalities, Anathema never would have been able to discern them. They were different in subtle ways as individuals, but together they were quite a sight.

She perhaps got a little jealous at the way they looked at each other, and then reminded herself that they'd practically been together for 25 years. 

"Any kids in your future?" Crowley asked all of a sudden. 

Anathema and Newt took a moment to look at each other, before laughing a little bit. 

"Honestly? We haven't thought about it, but looking after Adam and his friends is quite enough for just now," Newt said. Crowley shrugged. He hadn't expected them to, it was just a question.

"Crowley's got a couple cigars with the blue ribbon on them, he's been waiting for years for one of our friends to have a child so he can finally use them," Ezra explained, "but he says he'd 'never want to have a child of his own'-"

"I never said that. I say I wouldn't want kids when I'm complaining about somebody's child who has bad manners," Crowley corrected.

"So you're saying you do want kids?" Anathema asked, smug.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Maybe I don't want a wee child coming in to stress me out any more than I already am."

Ezra chuckled at Crowley's explanation, patting him on the arm. 

"In due time, love," was all Ezra said. 

"Do you think you two would get a surrogate, or just adopt?" Anathema questioned, full well knowing they'd both considered it (and had maybe discussed it).

"Adopt, obviously," Crowley said, "we haven't got any sisters by blood, which is generally the approach when you go surrogate."

"By blood- oh, could you imagine Bea having a child?" The two laughed a bit at the mental image that only two of them could have.

Ezra, at some point, suggested they get that bottle of wine out. Newt said something about it being pretty early to drink, but Anathema got up and got it out anyway. A bottle of wine among four people couldn’t exactly do much in terms of getting drunk.

They finished off the bottle, and buzz each of them got opened up the conversation to something that was far more familiar. Suddenly, they were all teenagers again, sitting around in Agnes Nutter’s kitchen, complaining about their classes and arguing over who had the hardest homework.

Crowley and Ezra departed after dark, and they went straight home. Crowley almost had the impulse to drive through Willowbranch, but he’d save that for some other time, when he was more sober. Perhaps he’d need a drink for that, actually.

-

The wedding was held a month later, once it was a bit warmer. It was a small affair. Anathema’s mother was there (whom Crowley and Ezra had never met), Newt’s mother was there (whom Crowley had only ever met once or twice, Ezra had never met her), and some more people the pair assumed were close family friends or other family members. 

There were some kids running around, too. 

It was small enough to be held in the garden (which was fairly large), with the reception being there on the property just so nobody had to travel. 

Crowley and Ezra showed up on time with everybody else, but it was hard not to notice the refurbished vintage 1929 Bentley pull up to the curb. It was even harder not to notice a man step out of the passenger side in a downy gray three-piece with hickory and blue accents, and by the time the driver stepped out wearing a sleek black tuxedo (with tasteful red and gold accents), flaming red hair swept back into a half-knot, there were plenty of people looking and staring.

When they entered the garden through the gate, only a few brave souls inquired as to who they were (oh, just old friends of the happy couple, the man in gray would say happily). The information spread, and some few found out that they were quite an odd couple, yet very entertaining in conversation. It only took an hour and a half before Crowley got bored of mingling and started to make shit up in stories with Anathema and Newt (which sometimes earned a discreet smack from Ezra, and sometimes earned a little chuckle). 

Crowley had finally settled into a nice conversation with Newt’s mother (such a nice woman) before four children ran up to him. 

He recognized the one front and center as Adam, the kid he thought was Anathema and Newt’s bastard boy at first.

“Hi, Crowley, Ezra,” Adam said. Ezra greeted him and his friends warmly.

“Anathema told us that we had to bother you and Ezra, because she wanted us to stop bothering her,” a girl to the left of Adam said.

Ezra expected Crowley to look like he was ready to leave, but instead he was smirking. Oh, no.

“Well,” Crowley started, “why don’t you introduce yourselves? We’ve only ever met Adam.”

“I’m Pepper,” the girl from before said, puffing her chest out a bit. Crowley liked her already.

“I’m Wensleydale,” a boy with thick glasses said, “it’s actually my last name, but everybody calls me that anyway.” Ezra gave Crowley a gentle nudge, and an affectionate smile.

Pepper had to nudge the last boy to get his attention.

“Oh, I’m Brian! Hi!” he beamed, offering out a sticky hand to shake. Crowley and Ezra looked at each other, silently arguing about who was going to take it. Before they could come to a conclusion, Pepper slapped his hand.

“We’re called The Them,” Adam said.

“Oh, Crowley, don’t they remind you of your friends from school?” Ezra gushed. Crowley just let out a ‘tch’.

“I can see why you’re saying that, but you’re wrong,” Crowley responded.

“Do you kids all live in this neighborhood?” Ezra asked, and they all nodded. “Oh, wonderful! Now, tell me- across the street, three houses down, the one with the porch swing? Do any of you know who lives there?”

Adam cocked his head. “You’re talking about my house,” he said, “why do you ask?”

Ezra smiled down at him, and Crowley held back the same nostalgic expression.

“Well, Adam, before you were born, my family and I lived in that house. I grew up there, and lived there my whole life.”

A murmur set over The Them. It was less dramatic that Crowley and Ezra could hear what they were saying - the general consensus seemed to be that it was pretty cool that Adam could meet who lived there before him. 

“Where’d you grow up, mister?” Brian asked, obviously talking about Crowley. 

Crowley gripped his own hands behind his back, and he could feel Ezra reach over to take one of his hands.

“I didn’t live in this neighborhood - well, not technically. I grew up in London, and I lived in a house in- I lived in Willowbranch,” Crowley said, looking away when the name of his neighborhood came out. None of the kids seemed to take much effect of that, or just didn’t understand the implications, and they all nodded and stuff. 

“What did you mean by technically, mister Crowley?”

Crowley had to bite his tongue before correcting Pepper to _Dr. Crowley,_ figuring it wasn’t worth it.

“I moved out of my house after I graduated, and stayed with Ezra and his mother for a few months before we both moved to London together,” Crowley explained, his tone less strained and his grip on Ezra’s hand less tense.

The two told stories about growing up in that town to the children for a while. It was entertaining (even though they had to leave out quite a few details on the topics of parties).

The wedding did eventually start, and everybody found their seats (they could have both been in the wedding, but specifically requested not to be). Ezra had a hand on Crowley’s knee as Anathema walked down the aisle, and Crowley wrapped an arm around Ezra as they started speaking their vows. It was the wedding they didn’t get to have.

Ezra said he only wanted to have a wedding if his mother would come and be happy about it. Gabriel and Michael didn’t have too much trouble warming up to their relationship, but his mother had never come around. So they went ahead and got their marriage license and bought rings for each other and that was it.

Ezra’s worst fear was his mother passing away before she got to be part of his life again, and with every year that passed, the reality became more and more prevalent. At this wedding, he could let go of that fear. She’d come around soon, she just needed time. He could let go of his fear for a few hours tonight.

At the reception (which The Them went home before), they got drunk and had fun and told stories and danced. 

With Ezra in his arms, swaying around to some song he wasn’t paying attention to, he could have cried. 

He’d burned the candle at both ends until he was 18 years old. He thought he was locked in to the same life his father lived. 

With Ezra in his arms, he realized he’d never have to deal with that kind of life ever again, and he could finally settle down and start a life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for making this possible.
> 
> follow my twitter (@bitch_ohmygod) for updates on the Aberdeen series, and updates on anything else I'm working on!


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